Princess Wilde
by naiad8
Summary: Sofia grows into a young woman with yearnings that are not exactly human. Who was her father anyway? What has his legacy given to her, and who will guide her through the fire?
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This ship will drive me insane. Here I am, writing another saga for a princess and her sorcerer, and desperately trying not to make it drivel with a pedaphilia edge. I swear to you, nothing naughty will happen until our Sofia is at least 18. Even so, Cedric is 15 years older than her, and if anyone complains I shall remove this. But it won't let me sleep at night until I type it out11!_

_Suggestions and comments, even flames welcome!_

**Princess Wilde: Chapter One**

I really thought that I was just a girl. Well, I was a princess, yes, so I guess that's a little bit special, but that was kind of an accident really. I tried my best not to let it go to my head.

So I was just a girl. Who could talk to animals and get in more than my share of trouble,ok fine. But I really had tried to be better the last few years. Being a good daughter, a supportive sister, and a fun friend is a lot to juggle. Add princess and flying derby champion and magical apprentice and I had enough on my plate. I was pretty happy being just another girl in Enchancia. A human girl.

It was about two months after my fourteenth birthday when I woke up really early after a terrible night's sleep. No matter how tight I pulled the curtains, it seemed like the moonlight would creep in and keep me awake. The sky was barely light with a pre-dawn glow when I opened my door. There was the most delicious smell wafting up to the bedchambers from the kitchens far below. I didn't even remember to put on slippers or a robe, I just followed that heavenly scent down hallways and stairs until I was in the kitchens.

There was a side of beef on the spit, just starting to roast over the fire for tonight's meal. The almost raw meal would have been revolting to me the day before - I had vowed to give up eating meat not long after my Amulet let me talk to animals. But now - I don't even want to think about how all that glistening fat and red flesh made me salivate. I stepped closer and closer, and I swore I would have taken a bite of it right then, if Rufus - the kitchen dog - hadn't greeted me with an enthusiastic, "Howdy, Princess, what'ya doing down here so early. Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Can't eat it though. Get my share later!"

I remember staring at Rufus and nodding an automatic hello, then spinning around and sprinting away from the kitchen, dashing down the hallways, the noise of my bare feet slapping the marble echoing like cannon fire. My vision was blurred with tears and I felt so lost, so out of control. I slammed into a wall of human at top speed.

Cedric cushioned my fall as we slid backward onto the hard stone floor. He grunted enthusiastically, his arms wrapping tight around me. I stared into his eyes for a long moment as I lay on top of him, frozen in the awkwardness of the situation.

His face went from perturbed to resigned to concerned in mere seconds. "Princess Sofia? Are you ok? You're awake awfully late...or awfully early, and you've been crying?"

It all crashed down on me, the hunger, my lack of sleep, and the general restlessness that had been building in me for months. I lay my head down on his chest and cried my eyes out, clutching him like a giant teddy bear. I bearly felt him sit up, rearranging my body like a limp ragdoll. He patted my head awkwardly and simply let me hold on. As I ran out of steam, he scrambled to his feet and put his arms around my back and under my knees and actually picked me up. It was a feat of strength that should have been shocking for such a thin man as Mr. Cedric, but I didn't question it. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my head against his robes, my nose brushing the bare skin of his throat - he wasn't wearing his bow tie, and his shirt was half unbuttoned. I didn't question it then, but I thought about it often later. I inhaled deeply, taking comfort in the scent of him and his potions - honey and vinegar and bitter herbs and things i didn't really want to think about. There was also the scent of pine, and something undefinable that was just Mr. Cedric and magic.

He was walking, and I finally noticed that he was taking me outside, out into the gardens. The sky was just starting to turn to blue and orange with the coming dawn when he stopped in a sheltered corner of the garden with a view toward the East, one with a garden bench.

"Can I set you down, Princess?"

I nodded, unsure that I could actually speak.

He set me on the bench and I managed to let go of his neck, though I felt a distinct pang to be separated from him. He stepped back and I noticed his dishevelled state - no waistcoat, simple trousers and shirt, and no shoes, though he still wore his robes. He stared at me a moment, his eyes wide and searching. He swallowed, his eyes narrowed, and he nodded, as though answering a question that had not been asked aloud.

He pulled his wand out of his sleeve and muttered some spells in a soft voice, as though he didn't want to alarm the birds just starting to chirp. I suddenly felt slippers on my feet and a warm robe wrapped around me.

His own clothes appeared in perfect order next, from shoes to yellow bow tie. Then another gesture and a table appeared, followed by a pot of tea, two china cups, both chipped, plates and flatware, all familiar pieces I'd seen in his tower rooms. Not the elegant stuff from the royal dining rooms, these were Cedric's own.

He sat down next to me and poured out the tea such as I liked it, one sugar and a bit too much milk. Then he faced me and cocked his head. "You are Hungry," he stated plain as day. I could feel that capital letter. I felt myself blush, which was an odd reaction I suppose, but thinking of that terrible Hunger I'd felt in the kitchen seemed so embarrassing.

I picked up my tea with a shaking hand and nodded quickly. I didn't have the presence of mind to question how he knew, what he knew. I just stared at him, trying not to think about anything at all. I was trying to be numb. I wasn't very good at it.

With deft movements of his hand, our plates filled with steaming food - omelets oozing with onions and mushrooms and goat cheese, paired with a pile of succulent black cherries. Before I could control myself I had reached out and popped a cherry into my mouth, biting into the thick flesh of it and savoring the rich tasty on my tongue, the hardness of the stone inside against my teeth. It was real.

I smiled at Cedric, trying to be the cheerful Sofia that annoyed him to no end. "You know, when you aren't nervous, you really are sensational, Mr. Cedric. You perform magic like it was as simple as breathing. It's beautiful!"

It really was. He shrugged his shoulders and dug into his food, and I followed suit, staring at him out of the corner of my eye and trying to understand the odd roiling sensations in my heart and the heaviness in my lower stomach when I looked at him. It would take me years to understand what my body knew in that moment.

We watched the sunrise in companionable silence as we ate. As the bees began to awaken and buzz through the garden, Cedric started a running commentary on the importance of bees in the pollenation of magical plants and of bee products to the stability of most useful potions. I let his words wash over me as I made appropriate noises. I realized that he was making me comfortable, trying to return me to normal. My sister, my mother, not even Clover could have calmed me down and made me feel human and normal quite so fast.

"It's time to get back to your room, Princess. No doubt Baileywick will be around soon enough to wake you up, and you wouldn't want to start a panic by not being where you are supposed to be." He gave me a long suffering look, as though I didn't know how much trouble I routinely managed to get into.

I stood, pulling the robe about me tightly. "Thank you, Mr. Cedric. I..." I had no idea what to say to him, no idea what had happened to me.

He swallowed thickly, as though he too was lost for words. "I too feel...hungry sometimes. I find it easier to deal with out of doors, and perhaps in the company of a friend?"

I stared at him, a thousand questions running through my mind, but I just nodded in response. I turned and fled back to my chambers. I closed the door softly and padded across to my window seat, looking out at the early morning activity just beginning in the courtyard below. Clover stirred, openning his eyes and wrinkling his nose. He coughed slightly and stretched, groaning under his breath at his aches and pains - he was old, very old, for a bunny. I treasured every day he was with me.

He inhaled suddenly and looked up at me, something strange in his eyes. "Princess. You...how are you feeling? You are up very early."

"I...I didn't really sleep very well, Clover." How could I tell my friend about the horrible hunger? How could I make him afriad of me? "Clover...tell me, do I seem different to you? Different from other girls?"

Clover climbed slowly into my lap, and I stroked his patchy grey fur. He sighed appreciately, then looked up into my face. "You are different, Sofia. You are Royalty."

"I know I'm a Princess, Clover, I mean..."

"Not that...human royalty means nothing to us animals, girl!" he chuckled dismissively. "I mean, you are royalty of the forest. An Honored One. I thought you knew that."

"What does that mean, Clover? I've never heard of that."

Clover looked at me with a furrowed brow, "Really? Do your schools teach you anything useful? I thought for sure that the other one would have said something. You can change...well, someday. You are too young yet. But someday, you'll be a Guardian of the forest."

I looked at him blankly. He snorted and rolled his eyes. "I don't know what kind...but you are a predator, Sofia. The animals look up to you with respect now, and a little bit of fear. Haven't you noticed?"

I bit my lip and nodded. My friends had changed over the years, some leaving on migration, some starting families, and some dying. Animals have such short lives. I had cried over every one, but I understood that was the way of things. But lately, the new friends I made were different, more distant, more respectful. I thought it was because I was older, but...

"What kind of predator? And what other one?" I whispered, still trying to wrap my mind around what Clover meant. I never wanted to hurt any of my friends, he had to know that.

But Clover was already asleep once again, curled up in my lap and snoring. With a loud knock on the door, Baileywick announced it was time to wake up, and Claire would be coming in soon to help me dress. I put Clover gently down on the cushioned bench and went about getting ready for breakfast and school. I vowed to bring him an extra big batch of carrots that afternoon, and get some answers out of him

But that afternoon his cough was worse, his nose dry and hot. I forgot about my own woes as I worked to nurse him back to health, bothering Mr Cedric night and day for curative potions and rejuvenating spells. Surprizingly, he did not chastise me or push me out of his tower rooms or berate me for treating him like an animal apothecary. I never questioned it then, I was simply grateful for the help.

Two weeks later, and Clover was on the mend, but seemed very forgetful and tired. And I had new worries. My bleeding time had finally come. I was not terrified, as Amber had been almost two years before. She told me all about how she had fainted and thought she was dying until Mother had told her she had become a woman. Amber had actually been rather cruel in her taunting me that I had yet to grow curves or begin to bleed, I had just grown taller and taller, and I was a gawky stick figure of a girl.

But here finally, I was a woman, and Mother explained to me how my body could now carry a child, and how that child was created by a man and a woman, and how I must protect myself from the advances of unworthy men and guard myself until I was married. My thoughts spun with this new knowledge, and my body seemed a foreign thing, not quite my own any more.

Two weeks later, the moonlight again taunted me, allowing me no sleep, and the intense hunger gnawed at my belly throughout the night. I was out of my room long before dawn, roaming the garden as far from the house as I dared to go. I found myself once again in front of the conjured table I'd shared with Mr Cedric a month before, and there he was, waiting expectantly. He was once again less formally dressed, as though he'd put on clothes in a hurry, and once again he lacked shoes, something that should have been odd, but oddly made sense. My own feet seemed to itch being confined in my silk slippers, and I longed to run my toes through the dewy grass.

"Long night, Princess Sofia?" he waved a hand at the other end of the bench he sat on. I sit, closer to him than I probably should have, close enough that his loose robe brushed against my hip.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He smiled at me, and nervously tapped his fingers on the table. Once again he called up a sumptous breakfast that seemed to almost satisfy me, and once again we watched the sunrise and spoke of the natural world and it's interaction with magic.

The scene repeated over and over again, and I never really asked why. I was too grateful to question it, worried I would break the spell. I was still very much the little girl at fourteen.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_A switch in PoV, let's hear things from Cedric's side_

When did I finally give up my quest to obtain the Amulet of Avalor? Well, I hadn't serious tried to steal it since Sofia was ten or eleven. I hadn't really even had a good plotting session while trying to fall asleep. But I never officially vowed to give up my plans at world domination and just turn into a noble fool.

Not until I realized what Sofia really was to me. And the burden the Amulet had set on her slight shoulders, far before she could have understood what it meant.

Forget the debacle with Princess Ivy (I didn't forget it for long enough) and all the other troubles I had seen that damned Amulet cause. For years I assured myself that I could make the thing bend to my will, and someday I would make everyone see what a great sorcerer I was, how powerful I had become despite my inadequacies. I was a bloody selfish buffoon.

Then I saw the responsibility of that Amulet, resting on such an achingly young girl - I knew that I would be torn apart by the thing. I could never be as good, as brave, as true as Sofia.

She was a thorn in my side, a chatterbox, an annoying if accomplished apprentice….and my best friend.

She was also a lusus naturae, though there was nothing distorted or unnatural about her. She was an Honored One. A lycanthrope. A werewolf like me, though I spent years completely oblivious to the fact.

When she wept in my arms after her first moon night, I was shocked. The scent of her was clear - how had I missed it? Me, with my enormous nose and my supposed sensitivity had missed that the only known female werewolf in a thousand miles had been my own apprentice for six years. I held her in my arms and realized that all my improvements, my magic finally stabilizing, the contentment I felt with my life - I had dared to think that I was maturing into what I was always meant to be.

After all, I was still very young for a werewolf. Thirty was still practically a child. My father told every human who needed to know that he was sixty seven, but he was closer to two hundred and sixty seven. He treated me like a young child who needed to be constantly corrected because to him, I was a mere babe. My vaunted sister who was so perfect and so very good at magic - she was ninety two. Though she was not a werewolf - girls born with the ability to shift most often died in infancy, magic had lengthened her life considerably, but not as much as for a lycanthrope. If I was careful, I could see half a millennia. But I was often inept with my magic, unstable - my control ironclad but my execution faulty, as though some part of my magic was locked away from me. I thought I had freed it myself.

But it was Sofia. A female werewolf is so coveted, so desired, because she brings balance and harmony to the magic which makes us lycanthropes who we are. Sofia, even as a young child, had done that for me unconsciously, automatically. She could command me as naturally as breathing because of who and what she was, and she needed me to be better - so I was. For a brief flash, I held that crying girl in my arms and I hated her, hated that she had taken my accomplishment from me - and I loved her, because she had made me a better man. I wanted to keep her, I wanted her to be mine. One day, my mate. She would make me into a great sorcerer, a great Wolf. Truly an Honored One.

I told you I was a selfish idiot.

Part of my plan was to protect her, keep her away from the hint of any other wolves - and my territory had been set out by my father decades ago, and I had guarded it viciously ever since with every crafty trick I knew. I was a poor magician much of the time, but I was comfortable as a wolf. I would slowly teach her what she was - because she had no idea. And when the time was right, I would tell her that she had to be mated to another wolf, and I was more than available.

If she happened to bring the Amulet into the marriage as her dowry, all the better.

This went on for months and months. I have to admit I enjoyed the time I spent with the girl. She was intelligent and charming and needed someone to talk to. I had been her friend. I knew I would continue to be that friend, and that I could offer her protection in a world that could potentially be very violent toward her if she was discovered before she was fully in charge of her powers. I was an idiot, but I wasn't completely without a soul. No one could be Sofia's friend and remain truly evil.

But I was fooling everyone, myself most of all.

To know Sofia is to love Sofia. Myself most of all.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to Jess Deaton and her inspiring art, and Jessibelle881 and her inspiring stories. Crush you both, you sucked me back in and now I have plot bunnies multiplying like mad!

Chapter 3

The morning before the first full moon after my sixteenth birthday, my best friend Clover died peacefully in my arms. He held on so long for me, and I regret any pain that he suffered in order to help me through what had been a tough year.

I had been given more and more responsibilities as a princess, more class work in statecraft, tactics and etiquette.

As a Story Keeper, the tales I finished had grown deeper, more complex, more full of war and pain - the need for love and hope stronger and stronger in every one. But there were those I could not finish, that I would have to leave for the right Keeper - and I had to learn to accept that fact. My magic work was strange and unpredictable, slithering between unexpected power - enough to cause a minor tornado in the throne room, and complete fizzle - I had no luck at all glamouring my skin blemishes away, much to Amber and James' amusement.

Clover had been there for it all, a wise but forgetful ball of funny fur. But he was fading, and I grew to value each day, knowing it could be the last. Until it was.

The Hunger was relentless when it came to me, but I found my strength to deny it's power from Clover, and from Ced...Mr. Cedric. But my sadness, oh I remember the pain of it still. Burying Clover under his favorite tree, Mr. Cedric watching quietly from a distance as I let my tears flow. I had been keeping everything bottled up and contained, and I was terrified that night I would be unable to control myself.

Mother gave me a long hug that night before bed, her eyes dark and worried. I didn't understand then that she knew more than she had ever admitted, I didn't think her capable of deceit, naive that I was.

By midnight I was outside, running barefoot along the edges of the forest, near to Clover's tree and his grave beneath, exhilarated and sad and terrified. Something was thumping within me, clawing to get out. I felt as though I could disappear into the depths of the dark woods and never ever come out again - and I wanted exactly that. I saw brilliant yellow eyes staring at me hungrily from within the forest, and I was strangely unafraid. I took a few steps forward, only to have my amulet shimmer and pulse with light, and a princess appear to me.

It had been some time since I had been visited by a princess guide. I thought perhaps I had outgrown the privilege, or that once I proved worthy, perhaps I would visit someone else someday. Perhaps I might yet do so, for my story is far from finished, I hope.

The light cleared and within was Snow White. She was lovely as I remembered, dark hair and pale skin, but she was not in the typical princess dress. She was dressed in a cream colored tunic and trousers, a bow over her shoulder and a quiver across her back like she knew how to use them. I think my eyes just about bugged out of my head.

"Hello, Sofia. It is good to see you again." The high pitched trill of her voice was sweet but somehow tired. I remember wanting to offer her a chair, when there was nothing about but cold grass and tree stumps.

She found her own tree stump soon enough, her posture not that of the proper princess, but of a woman who had seen more than her body could handle, and would likely face more soon enough. Somehow, I realized that the happily ever after that we all hear about from the story books might not have been quite the ending to her story I had always believed it to be.

"Princess…" I asked, but was interrupted immediately.

"Call me Snow. Please." Her eyes closed for a moment, and she rolled her shoulders. Something was definitely wrong for her.

"Can I help, Snow? Is there something…"

She closed her eyes, a smile on her lips. "Oh, child. You are so very good. I'm so happy I am able to come to you, to help you. Do not worry about my own troubles. It will be a relief not to think about them for a time." She opened those soft brown eyes, eyes so like a doe, and her smile softened further. "Have you discovered what you are yet, Sofia?"

I had tried to find out, search the Secret Library and peeping into Cedric's vast stores of books when I could. There was very little I could discover. But in my gut, I knew the answers so close but not yet clear. "No, Pr…Snow. I know that I am kind of guardian, according to my friend, Clover." I gestured at the grave at our feet. "But he couldn't tell me any more. He said there was another but…"

"He hasn't revealed himself to you? He has more restraint than I would have guessed." Her smile widened. "You are a Guardian of the Forest. You have an animal spirit that is entwined with your human soul. You are both of the Kingdom, and of the darkness of the deep forest And in both, you are a Princess true."

I soaked in the words, less shocked than I should have been. "What kind of animal?" Why would that have been my first question? Shouldn't I have asked about this other Guardian who wouldn't reveal himself? But a the time, I was almost frightened to find out for certain who he was. I wasn't ready yet.

"I don't not know for certain, but I suspect. You are still young yet to transform and know yourself completely."

I stood taller, defensive in the way of the all too young. "I am sixteen, almost old enough for my debut!"

Snow smiled again. "Perhaps, but your body still has many changes to make before you are ready for all you need to know. It took me years until I was prepared." And then she began to glow with a soft golden white light. And then came the stretching and cracking and slow shifts that were awesome and terrifying and more than a bit unsettling to my stomach, allowing the Hunger to abate. And then there was no Princess Snow White. There was a white doe.

A shining white doe, reflecting the light of the moon to an unearthly extent, so full of magic I could barely breathe.

"Snow? Snow is that…"

The doe nodded, pawing the ground with one delicate hoof. And then she trotted a few feet away, toward the thick woods. She snapped her head at me, clearly wanting me to follow, and then she ran straight into the brush. Before I consciously made a choice - I was running. Faster and faster, dodging every root and branch as though I could feel every part of the forest in my very blood. I felt like I was flying. Better than flying. I felt like the earth itself pulsed within me, like every rock and stream and tiny thudding heart around me sang a symphony around me. Somehow, impossibly, I had kept up with the white doe's every leap. But I skidded to a clumsy stop when she halted ahead of me in a moon bright glen ahead. I stumbled, suddenly awkward and noisy again, suddenly a sixteen year old girl once more, very deep within an enchanted wood.

And there was a wolf in the glen with us. A very big wolf.

The doe pranced, just a bit nervous, and my heart skipped a beat in fear with her. Then she bowed, a noble nod of her head, and miraculously, the wolf returned her nod with equal grace. She turned to look in my wide eyes, and then she shimmered into sparkled, leaving the pink glow of the Amulet as my only company. That and the wolf of course.

I hate never seen such a terrifyingly beautiful animal in this forest. He was black, deep black, and would have been able to disappear into any shadow except for the light grey shock of fur that ran along his muzzle from a black nose to a long tuft between midnight-black ears. Amber gold eyes looked at me with something akin to shock, and I blurted out the first thought in my head.

"Cedric?"

The wolf flinched, before nodding slowly and staring at me with inscrutable yet so familiar eyes. Cedric the Sensational, my friend, my teacher, the man who had helped me through some of the scariest, most challenging things in my life, could change into a wolf. Snow White, proper idyllic princess and renown queen, could change into a doe. What did that make...

"Are you the other Guardian?"

He huffed softly, a sound of cynical amusement if a wolf could be said to make such a noise. Then he yipped an affirmative.

"Can I...will I able able to…can you show me…"

He turned away, then turned half way back, flicking his ears just so and then leaping into the woods. I was filled with terror for a minute, thinking he was about to leave me alone and lost in the middle of the woods, but he barked sharply again from the dark woods, and my feet took off at the sound, following him as easily as I had followed Snow as a doe.

We ran for most of the night, the Hunger soothed with the vigorous activity. I had never felt so alive. This was the feeling I had always been chasing for during Flying Derby training. Cedric was beside me, then leading me, then practically nipping at my heels and enjoying my squeaks of pseudo-terror. He was having fun. And I adored watching him have fun. It made some warm secret place in my heart throb with happiness. I hadn't yet realized what that meant, or what other warm secret places would throb at the merest thought of him. But it wasn't that much longer.

We burst through the forest and out into the edges of my secret garden, and I gasped at the cold shock of the reality of my day to day life. I was a princess. I had just lost one of my oldest and best friends. My nightdress was torn and dirty, and my hair wild and full of sticks and leaves. I had a hundred duties and obligations to attend to tomorrow, not to mention a test on the political history of Tangu and Agrabah the day following. I bent over, suddenly feeling completely exhausted and sucked in air greedily, my hands on my knees and my eyes closed.

"Well, I see that your athletic skill translates well into this particular aspect of your developing nature." Cedric's wry voice made me jump, and i turned to stare at him.

There had been no unsettling noises when he changed. Nothing but a wolf one minute and a man the next. My eyes took him in, his green shirt open at the neck, his black breeches conforming tight to legs that were nowhere near as scrawny as they seemed in my childhood, with firms calves and large, strong feet that were bare in the dew-laden grass. His hair was a bit longer than it had been when I first met him, and he normally had it back in a queue, but now it was loose and just a bit wild, and I was breathless for a completely different reason.

I loved him, of course I loved him. He was a dear friend when I needed one most. He understood me at a level no one else seemed able to. He was interesting and powerful and knowledgable about so many things. But I had never really seen him as a man before that night. An attractive man. One who made my knees go a bit shaky and my heartbeat unsteady and who I wanted to…well, I didn't exactly know in that moment what I wanted to have him do, much less what I wanted to do to him, but my imagination over the next months began to become consumed with ideas.

He pulled out his wand - I had not a clue where he had stored it as a wolf, and with a deft flick and a few words his hair was tamed, his yellow tie and shoes had appeared, and he wore a set of familiar dark purple robes. He was once again Mister Cedric, Royal Sorcerer and my magic master, not a slightly disheveled and remarkably sexy man who had just been a wolf. Another tight movement of his wand, and I had a thick warm robe, slippers on my feet, and my hair was in a braid down my back and free of any sign I'd just been on a wild run.

"Shall we have breakfast, my dear? I'm always quite famished after a wolf night."

I nodded, still not quite believing what had happened. I was filled with so many questions, yet I couldn't yet find the voice to ask.

That night was followed by many more where I ran with him in the forest. Not just on nights where the moon filled my heart with Hunger, but on other nights he wasn't always the wolf. He once fluttered to my window as a raven, who I mistook for Wormwood until I saw the shock of white feathers over the bird's right eye. Another time he was a black otter, and I had to restrain myself from pulling him into my arms and smothering him with kisses, he was so adorable.

I began to know the forest like I knew the castle, every glade and stream and rocky outcropping. One summer night I saw Cedric defend the forest from the threat of fire. In the fall, from an attack by some kind of monstrous black boar that was thoroughly unnatural, dripping some kind of acid with every shake of it's enormous head. Then there was a long winter's night where he sat in the freshly fallen snow and settled disputes between creatures from sleepy bears preparing to hibernate and competing for caves to snow white owls fighting over hunting territory. He was remarkable, but not perfect. Where he tore into the boar with flashing teeth and wandless magic, he was useless at healing the injured animals and trees - so I did my best to help. Where he used cold logic to render decisions between those animals and people who used the forest, he let me speak up with insights into the hearts of the involved, and sometimes he allowed it to sway him. I felt useful and needed. It was thrilling.

He was thrilling. He was every bit the prince or king he claimed he always wanted to be, but he didn't seem to realize it. He was certainly more of a prince than any of the foolish boys who tried to charm me at Royal Prep, or attempted to steal kisses when I was more than uninterested. I lived for the nights I ran with him, and nothing any of those royals could do could possibly compare. I only wished I had told him earlier how completely I was his.


	4. Chapter 4

When did I know that she...oh no no. The better question is when did I decide that there was no way I could take her to be my mate. That was sometime just before her seventeenth birthday.

I was a fool, you see. I had managed to misplace my pragmatic evildoer wisdom and was struck over the head with a fit of nobility that rendered me temporarily insane.

Or I just felt guilty. Sofia was far, far too good for me, after all.

I was a mediocre wizard at best, no matter how much better I had become with her presence to stabilize me. I had always been at one with the wolf. The wolf was such a part of me at such a young age of transition that I could flow from one form to the other with barely a thought. I had to extend a bit more effort to become a raven or an otter or a grasshopper, but that kind of internal magic usually came to me easily. I was never very comfortable in my human form, so Changing seemed easy. It was the one thing I could do right, and I was extraordinarily proud of that.

Once my magic had stabilized enough to prove to my father that I could hold my own with external magic, I had earned the family wand, no small thanks to the purple Princess. And with that Wand came the responsibility of the family territory. The Enchancian forest and mountains had been guarded by my family for ten generations. A long line of wolf wizards, respected and obeyed as Guardians. And it became my responsibility.

How had I ever wanted to be King? King was hard work. Guardian was bad enough, but most of the time it seemed that animals were far more reasonable than people, even if I couldn't understand some of the more obscure dialects of squirrel or woodchuck. I have to say running the woods with Goodwin the Great and learning to adjudicate conflict and defending our Forest from everything from beetle blight to spring floods to Fae-mad boars made me appreciate the restful nature of my little Tower workroom a great deal. I was finally let loose to deal with the territory on my own just in time to have Sofia thrust upon me as a kind of apprentice once again by an interfering Guardian Queen from hundreds of years in the past.

I had plans to teach her how to defend herself. How to change her shape. How to ward off the advances of any other changelings, Guardians or no. I had not really planned on training her in the duties my family had taken on far far in the distant past, before Enchancia even existed. But it was exactly what we both needed.

I was better for her presence at my side. And she, she was magnificent. Intelligent and creative and empathetic and heartbreakingly beautiful as she ran by my side through the woods I had grown to love. I began to imagine her running through those woods as a wolf, as my mate. And she was far too young for me to let my mind wander to other things we could do in the depth of hidden glades or hunter's cottages or sparkling crystal caves or in the boughs of the great tree in the center of the deepest part of the forest.

Guilt ate at me. I watched her grow into a woman and the temptation of her was eating me alive. I couldn't take this child as my mate. She was too beautiful, too intelligent and fiery and remarkable. She should have her choice of mates. She should be a real Queen. An Empress. Her mate, in the distant future and far from my jealous eyes, should be every bit as handsome and powerful and just plain good as she was. She could have a pack of Guardian children that would rule a far away kingdom for ten generations. Maybe she could send one here to take over the Enchancian Forest - because I knew that there was no other woman I could ever see myself mating in my very long, very lonely life. I couldn't force myself as her only choice, because having her hatred when she realized what I had done would surely kill my soul and leave me an empty husk.

For a month or two I tried to convince myself that her dominant form would not be a wolf. That she would be a doe like Queen Snow. Or a bobcat. Or a horse. A tiger. A falcon. Anything but a wolf. Surely fate would not be so very cruel to me. I put off teaching her the full Change, because I wanted to keep away the temptation of her Form just a bit longer.

But then came her seventeenth birthday, and her birthday Ball. I'd done a flawless performance, sending a rain of silver fire falling like snow on an enthralled audience, creating illusions of being under the sea, then of dancing among the stars themselves. I'd watched her dance with every prince from the entire Continent, and a few from across the sea. She was officially OUT, and as such subject to the wiles of every royal in the room and many matchmaking diplomats. I'd seethed in a corner, watching her dancing in a dress of cornflower blue sparkling with aquamarines and diamonds. Her eyes were brighter and more brilliant than ever and I'd known I was right. I watched her dance with young handsome prince after young handsome prince and I knew I could not deprive her of a choice.

But she found me. Dragged me out of the corner and insisted I dance with her, and it had been magical. The rest of the room disappeared as I held her in my arms, resisting the urge to pull her closer, to smell the silk of her hair or kiss the soft sweet pink of her lips. Selfishness rose thick and heady in my soul, far more comfortable than the unnatural nobility, and I whispered to her to meet me in the forest after the ball.

True, it was not the night of the full moon - but she would not need the moon and the strong instincts the moon brought to the fore. I had every confidence that her first Change would be beautiful, and she did not disappoint me. She never had, I doubt she ever will. Sofia is a force of nature.

It was well past midnight when she came to me, not in the ball gown that had made her look the Queen she should be, but in simple linen trousers and a loose shift. She was even more lovely to me this way - a way few others ever saw her. This way she was Sofia - and almost mine. The possessive, selfish part of me that had risen ascendent wanted to make her mine, and I knew I could have had her by the look in those wide blue eyes, eyes that shown silver in the light of a gibbous moon. She looked at me like I had set that moon in the sky and that she wanted me to take her there, to show her all the pleasures that could be had under its soft white glow in the dark bliss of the night. I remember just how hard it was to draw back from that edge, to resist taking away her childhood, her choices. I remember how many nights following I regretted my idiotic nobility.

"It is time now for you to find your true form, Princess." That 'Princess' was very important. It was a wall that helped me remember who and what she was that I was not.

"Sofia," she answered impertinently. "Or do you wish for me to return to calling you Mister Cee-drick?" She grinned at me and I muttered something under my breath that it might just help me remember that she was a child.

Alas, her hearing was becoming every bit as acute as my own, and she grew intent and serious. "But I'm not a child anymore, Master."

"Cedric. Call me Cedric then." It was less tempting than having her call me Master, which was far too darkly alluring.

"Cedric. I'm not a child. And I do want to discover my form. You've never let me see you Change. I saw Princess Snow and it looked painful."

"Queen. Queen Snow by then. She was no doubt in the middle of the Dwarven wars, if she was prancing about in that form. She never learned to shift until long after she was married to her second husband, King Kaland. I doubt she was very elegant at the Change if she came into her power so late."

Her eyes grew round. "What! Her second husband? They never…I never…."

"History is a dirtier business than the teachers at Royal Prep would have had you believe, Sofia. You are welcome to look into my history books whenever you wish. I assure you they are more complete. And yes, some Guardians do not know what they are until they have considerable more life experience under their belt that you. Even I am still young to be as I am - I'm thirty three, but I could live to be five hundred. My father thinks I'm little more than a child myself."

Her brow grew furrowed, as her quick mind spun. "Five hundred. Five centuries. Could I, will I…my family?"

I nodded, watching the emotions flash across her face. "You have so much magic in you, you will likely outlive all your family. Guardians often feel very alone."

"But your father and mother, they are partners, and you have your sister. You might…" she blushed becomingly, and I wondered at the time what she had been meaning to say. I wonder what I would have done then if I hadn't been too stupid to realize that she was about to say that I would have a wife. That I might have her as a wife.

"You do realize that my sister is in her nineties? And she didn't even inherit the ability to Change. She is only a carrier. Her magic makes her age slowly, and your magic is extraordinary. You will age slowly, whether you can change or not."

He enjoyed watching her mouth drop open in shock. "So you see why seventeen is very young. And you, Sofia, are very rare in being ready so young, and…being able to change at all. Females…women who can change are rare, especially those who change into a…into a…well, we shall see, won't we." I let my voice trail away and for some reason Sofia had a blush staining her cheeks.

Part of me was still clinging to the half-hope, half-fear that my Sofia would be something else. Not a wolf. Not compatible. Wolves mate for life after all.

I stood up tall, charged with a solemn responsibility. She should have family for this - whoever her father was, he'd left her completely unprepared. Sofia fairly vibrated with energy and excitement in front of me, and I had to restrain myself not to smile. My voice lowered, intoning the words my father had spoken when I was very young. "Watch me, Guardian. Watch me and see what you can understand."

I am pleased to say that my sense of drama served me well this time. Change like this never made me nervous like performing silly spells in front of an audience. Change was magic at its most essential.

I'm likely overly proud of this, my one great talent. So much of my magic could be uncontrolled or clumsy, at least before Sofia. But in this I excelled. Becoming a wolf was as simple as breathing. A raven was more of a challenge, and goddess help me if I ever tried turning himself into a sea creature again - that was a horrid mistake. But a wolf…oh, the wolf was home, sitting at Mother's feet, Father nodding at him in approval for this one great accomplishment, the reason I and not my sister had been given rights to the territory of Enchancia.

It was almost a relief to let go of my human shape, letting it fall away as the shape of my wolf rose in my mind, comfortable yet still thrilling. Magic flowed within me, warm and golden, and in moments I was looking up at Sofia through the eyes of a wolf. She panted softly, a stunned look in her eyes, the pink in her cheeks reminding me far too much of arousal in a very different setting.

"That was so beautiful, Cedric. Can I really…"

I nodded my head, cocking it slightly to the side and yipping once in encouragement. She bit her lip again and looked down at her body nervously. "Where…where do my clothes go, how do I…what can I."

I chuffed softly and in another moment where she watched me wide-eyed I rose before her a man again, smiling sardonically in the face of her worry. I gestured to my own shirt and breeches. I'd left off my shoes and necktie and all the other paraphernalia of polite society in the bushes, ready to reclaim them in their proper places with a twitch of my wand when needed. But no wand was needed to Change.

"Calm down, Sofia. You already know how to do this. It's in your blood. It sings to you every night. Your clothes will take care of themselves."

She nodded softly. "Show me again."

"I'll do better than that." I held out my hands to her, and for a heart-stopping moment I couldn't believe my audacity. To share this with her was the most intimate, most personal thing possible. Would I be altering her form? Fulfilling my own wishes over hers? But she didn't let me change my mind, she took my hands and grinned at me, rolling her shoulders and standing straight and tall, and with the next breath, we let go together.

The sensation - how can I possibly describe it? Her magic almost caressed mine. The essence of her was closer to me than anyone had ever been. We Changed together, forming and reshaping, and when I was again the wolf, I was looking into blue eyes made silver by the moon. A wolf's eyes. Sofia was a lusus naturae, and a wolf, just as I was. She danced away from me, unsteady on four feet but ecstatic. She leapt and twirled, yipping excitedly like a puppy at play.

She was a rich red brown, with patches of a grey-white that looked almost lavender in the moonlight on her feet and at her throat, forming a patch that looked remarkable like her Amulet. Which had disappeared within her, just as clothes were want to do - how fascinating. It truly was part of her. Why I had ever imagined I could take it from her - I was a fool.

She was perfectly shaped, elegant and yet sturdy. She was slightly smaller than me, but I knew in my heart she would be able to keep up with me, no matter what pace I set off running into the woods.

And run we did. That night was pure joy, and the memories of it were such that I thought they could sustain me through a long and lonely life.

I thought that I had given her power over her magic, and with a few more lessons in how to combine her Form with the skills she knew as an apprentice sorcerer, she would be able to protect herself against those who would try to mate her by force. I would be giving her back her choice, even if that would take her away from me. Another year perhaps, two if I was lucky, and then she would no doubt find someone whom she could love.

But I had forgotten about the Heat.

There were so few Guides available to me that spoke of female werewolves. Those Guides I'd read in my Father's study had been the life stories of male wolves mated to typical humans, or other species of Guardians. Father had told me of the phenomenon in female wolves, but I had forgotten it, knowing with the certainty of a disaffected youth that I would never find such a mate, so the information was useless drivel. So I had not prepared Sofia. And I had not prepared myself.

Truly - is this really necessary? This level of honesty is going to get this narrative in very hot water very soon. I do hope you wait a few generations before distributing these things. If I managed to blunder through, I would hope others could as well.

We ran together through our Forest every few nights for nearly a year. She had duties and obligations, and so did I, otherwise I would have run with her every night and every day, hoarding my time with her like the greedy miser I am. The hours spent with her were challenging, brilliant, and so very full of temptation. She learned to fight with tooth and claw, and she learned to use her wand, even as a wolf. Teaching her the tricks of how I managed to keep my wand stuck to my belly with magic while leaping through brush was hilarious and sometimes titillating. She was beautiful as a wolf, and so very lovely as a woman. But I managed to keep my paws, and my hands, to myself. I rarely let her hug me, and I resisted touching her as much as possible, fearing that I would lose myself at any time and pull her to me and kiss her, touch her, take her - take her choices away.

I began to realize that I still had a thread of hope. The looks she sometimes gave me - what looked like heat in her eyes. It may have been a childish infatuation with a man who paid her attention, but I hoped that it was more. It wasn't enough to have her, possess her. I wanted her to choose me. I wanted her to understand who and what she was and what she could be - and then to still choose me.

But then the Heat came and I thought I had lost that chance.

She was a month shy of eighteen - and I was still trying desperately to convince myself that she was a child. Despite the three suitors that had come to call on her and whom she had rejected, she was still far younger than I. She still needed time and experience and…her body apparently thought differently. Her heart and mind - I was not certain.

The moon was beautiful and singing a sweet night song on the warm summer air as I waited her at the edge of our Forest. For it was ours, and would ever be - even if she left to go across the world. I smelled her scent before I saw her approach. I was already in wolf form, far more comfortable in the light of the full moon than my human guise - but she was still human, and clearly something was wrong. I shifted quickly, and she staggered toward me, relief clear on her face before she fairly threw herself in my arms.

She smelled - by all the gods she smelled incredible - the full, lush flavor of her a cloud perfuming the air with pure temptation. I made the mistake of inhaling deeply, and it was as though I completely lost my sanity. My lips were on hers before I could think, my hands clutching her hips, pulling her toward mine. There was no way she could have failed to notice the hard proof of my sudden arousal trapped between our bodies. But her arms curled around my neck, clutching me to her with the same kind of mindless desperation. She arched her body into mine and let out a sound of pure need than was more wolf than human and a responded, growling into our kiss as I softly bit her bottom lip before sucking it into my mouth then thrusting my tongue into her mouth.

She was inexperienced but a very faster learner, and our tongues and lips and teeth meshed in a beautiful if fierce dance. Any experience I had gained over the years of my life was pushed aside all too quickly, as my hands began to trail over her body, one hand cupping her arse and the other cupping the warmth of her heavy breast through the fabric of her nightgown while she moaned in approval to my every touch. It was then I realized she wasn't wearing her usual tight trousers and thick linen shirt for our Forest visits - no, she was barely dressed, her thin lawn night gown sheer enough for me to tear with my bare human hands. It was at that thought, that I could tear the clothes from her body and have her naked under the glorious moon and be inside her in moments - that thought shocked me into a brief cold sanity.

"Sofia! Sofia I'm sorry. I…I don't know what I was thinking." I pulled away from her, though it was painful to do so.

She didn't run from me screaming. No, instead she whimpered pitifully and stepped toward me, closing the distance between us and pressing her body against mine, as though she too was in pain and I was her medicine. She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to mine, her hands plunging into my hair to hold me to her as she kissed me breathless once again. Using all of my strength of will, I captured her wrists and pulled her hands away, leaning away and then staring into her hooded eyes. Her pupils were huge - her blue eyes almost black. Her skin was flushed rosy and her breath came in quick hard pants. And her scent - gods, I held my breath to try and regain the use of my brain.

"Sofia, you need to speak to me Sofia. Have you eaten anything any of your suitors gave you? Candies or punch or biscuits? Anything?"

"No suitors today." She spoke, her voice low and husky. "No one bothering me, sniffing at me, wanting me to bear their heirs and look pretty on their arm." She pressed forward again, this time burying her head in the crook of my neck and inhaling, letting out a soft growl of happiness with whatever she found in my scent. "They are all useless. They aren't you."

My heart soared for a brief glorious moment, and I was in love with her and the wondrously sarcastic tone of her words and the feel of her young, lush but lithe body pressed against mine - sweet and warm and so very willing. But it could still be a potion or spell or something. It seemed too good to be true.

"But you haven't eaten anything odd? Anything…"

Her head whipped back and her eyes snapped up to mine, hot and impatient. "No Cedric, I haven't been hungry at all today. I have barely eaten anything but tea and toast, and the tea was from Bailiwick. I haven't had any potions, I am not ensorcelled and I am not insane. But I ache, I ache so badly. I want…I don't really know what I want, but I want you!"

Her speech trailed off on a pained moan, and her knees suddenly failed her. I caught her just before she ended up failing, and slowed her descent to the grass. She was writhing, tears in her eyes as she looked up at me. "Please, I ache, make it stop!"

Her hand drifted across her stomach and rubbed over her mons, pressing in against her labia as her head thrashed back and forth. "Nothing works, nothing." Her scent bloomed in the air, and he could see her wetness sealing into the fabric she pressed through. She was aroused. Painfully, utterly aroused.

The Heat. I'd forgotten about the Heat. Female Guardians in several forms experienced it, and wolves most of all. It was mysterious and the topic of dormitory whispers at Hexley Hall - but I had no idea what I was in for. It seemed impossible at the time - she was so young, and she was supposed to be already mated, or ready to fully mate at the time of onset. There was no way she was ready for this. She'd never shown the degree of interest in me that I would've thought necessary for this terrible need. So I stared down at her, dumbstruck, every bit the bumbling fool I had been when she first walked into my tower at the age of eight.

Her muscles tightened, and she began to shake before curling up in a ball and whimpering again, the sound heartbreaking. She gasped for breath. "Please...I know you don't…but I…please…" Her eyes opened wide, still black with arousal but now glassy with tears.

Instinct took over, and I was grateful for it. No complex emotional turmoil, no guilt. I cradled her in my arms and stood easily, then ran full bore into the woods, her shuddering body held tight against my chest.

There was no place in this Forest I didn't know. It was more my home than any dwelling I'd ever lived in, though no one in the Castle had any idea of that - and most wouldn't have thought me uninterested in nature whatsoever. But I knew every nook and cranny. And the ancient hunter's cottage had served as a hiding place for me since I was a child. I'd come here to brood in peace. I'd made it more comfortable over the years - the leaky roof was fixed, they was wood for the fire, some simple chairs, a few supplies for a simple meal and tea, and a new feather tick on the rope strung bed.

This was not the first time I'd taken Sofia to this place, but I'd never thought this place would be used for such activities. But it was safe and secluded and the wolf in me wanted a den right now - and this was where I ran.

I closed the door behind me with a heavy thud, and I swept a hand toward the fireplace with a negligent wave. The fireplace flickered over Sofia's face, making her look even more beautiful than the bright light of the moon outside. She looked up at me with a mixture of so many emotions - pain and lust and confusion and more than anything, raw need.

I placed her on the bed with great care, and let myself stare down at her, the hard peaks of her nipples straining through the thin fabric of her gown, the dark curls covering her slick, wet sex, and the desire in her eyes - raw and more naked than any mere skin could ever be.

I took that all in and I stood, shaking with the effort of tearing myself away from her. And then grabbed on tightly to my wand and I performed a spell from ancient times - one that every wizard taught his children, but never thought they would have to use.

"Auferte animalis."

I howled with the pain of it. On this of all nights, suppressing my own animal nature with this ruthless efficiency was unmitigated torture. In the distant past, my ancestors had developed the spell when on the run from the inquisition of sorcerers who did not have the power of the Guardians. It concealed and banished any contact with our animal selves, and made us, for a night, simply human. So I truly felt half a man when I came back to full consciousness, Sofia curled around me, crying and shivering and begging me to wake.

"Please Cedric - I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry. I didn't mean, I'd take it back….please don't…."

I raised a finger to her lips and stopped her disjointed diatribe and her eyes opened wide. She had been terrified, shaken out of the influence of the Heat, but as soon as I touched her kiss swollen lips, I could see her pupils enlarge once again, and desire once again cloud her mind. Her fingers curled into the muscles of my shoulders and with her animal strength and pulled me up into the bed with her, my aching body laying full atop her firm, supple curves. The scent of her surrounded me, though it was a pale shadow of its former allure with my nose only that of a human. She was still the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, but I hoped that with the mind of only a man, I could find the strength to resist the siren call of her need and do what was best for her.

"I'm fine, Princess. I'm just fine."

At the sound of my voice she whimpered again, arching her hips up into mine and I couldn't stop my body from bucking into hers, my hard cock eager to find a home between her thighs. I rolled off of her, fighting her now much greater strength to rest on my side, beside her body. At the time I didn't wonder why her reaction to me would be just as strong even though I had banished my animal side. I simply thought she was desperately aroused and out of her head, so she would want anyone who could give her relief.

She whined piteously with any distance between us, but I silenced her by taking her right nipple into my mouth through the fabric of her gown – denying myself the pleasure of the pure taste of her skin without the barrier. She cried out in pleasure, moaning in delight as I sucked and the nibbled softly at the too-tight bud. Her hips undulated, searching, and wanting to give her the relief she craved I pulled up gently on the yards of fabric of her gown, until I could slip one hand under the hem and against the soft skin of her thigh. She stilled suddenly, almost preternaturally motionless as my fingers moved farther and farther up her thigh until I touched the soft but slick curls at her center.

I let go of her nipple and she moaned in protest, her fingers sliding into my hair and trying to pull me back to her breast. I looked up at her face, willing her to understand me. "I'm going to try and help you, Princess..."

"Sofia!" she bit out, full of impatience and need.

I couldn't help but smile, "Sofia. I'm going to try and help you." _Please, don't hate me afterward,_ I thought but couldn't say.

My fingers slipped into her parts labia and swirled around the nub of her clit, and her hips bucked up and she let out a little scream. That was quite the reaction for what was only just the beginning. My other arm moved to press across her hips, keeping her down so that I could bring her the pleasure she needed without harming her or letting her harm herself. I should have pressed tight, quick circles around her clit, just as the books I'd read told me to do, but the slick silk of her folds begged for my exploration. Before I realized what I was doing I had moved a single finger deep into her channel, feeling her muscle clench about me as her chest moved in quick pants against my ear where my face pressed against her breasts and I could hear her heart beat thud like a hummingbird.

She felt like heaven, and though I tried not to imagine that slick heat gripping my cock, it was impossible not to let the thought burst upon my mind. I locked it away as fast as I could and ignore the demands of my cock, moving my hips away from her legs and back as far as I could without falling off the damned bed. I moved my fingers away from her quim and stroked her clit, gauging her reaction as I tried different pressure, different angles. The sorcerer in me watched in detached pleasure as I played her body, experimenting like I was creating a new potion – a little bit of circling, a little bit more pressure, less pressure, a little faster – and she was shaking, crying in ecstasy and I was beyond thrilled. The detachment shattered and I was filled with glee – I had made this woman, my woman, cry out in pleasure. I'd made her come, my fingers were damp with the proof of her ultimate delight. And without my mind interceding to stop my human instinct, I took my hand away from her folds and plunged my fingers into my mouth, tasting her essence and luxuriating in the sweet musky flavor of her.

Perhaps she had been sated, the Heat dulled sufficiently by that one orgasm. That was until I'd stupidly shoved my fingers into my mouth and let my eyes roll up in my head at the delicious taste. Cedric the Sensationally Stupid.

She growled at me, pulling me up the bed and kissing me hard enough to draw blood. She was a feral thing, one hand pulling open my shirt, the other, yanking at the ties of my breeches, and I felt her hot hand grip my cock through the fabric of my drawers. I yelped like a boy, pulling away from her and curling up in a ball, trying to calm my racing heart and the hot, greedy thing coiled inside of me that wanted to take everything she was offering.

I wanted her hand, her mouth around my cock. I wanted her legs splayed wide as my hips rocked between them, my cock driving deeper and deeper as I planted my seed inside of her ripe body, her cries of my name ringing to the heavens as she shook with the pleasure I alone could give her.

I couldn't. I loved her. I couldn't plant my child in her – force her to be mine for a very long lifetime.

She was whimpering again, tears in her eyes and I moved down the bed, climbing between her knees and moving the hem of her gown up to her waist. She made pleased sounds, her hands sliding into my hair as my head dipped between her thighs. She tried to pull me higher, but I couldn't risk it. I couldn't kiss her, press my body fully against hers. I was only human, after all.

I looked for the first time at the beauty of her woman's flower it the light of the fire I'd created, and my heart clenched. The slick red of her folds, the throbbing bid of her clit – no amount of reading could have prepared me for the sight and smell of her. She was delicious to me as a human – as a wolf I would have had no control at all. I would have gobbled her down without mercy and then fucked her throughout the night and the next day until neither of us could walk and the King's guards were sent out to find us and execute me.

She squirmed beneath me, her hips rolling, her need as bright and sharp as before I'd given her that first orgasm. If it took all night, I would please her, every way I could without taking away her choices. I tried to ignore the voices that reminded me just how much I was enjoying giving her pleasure, and how perhaps if I pleased her well enough her choice might just be the obvious one – me. But I wasn't as good or noble a man as Sofia wanted me to be, and those voices were very very seductive.

My tongue touched her clit and you would've thought lightning had struck my Princess.

"Cedric!" she screamed, her tone clearly one of delight. The corners of my lips curled up in as evil a smile as I could manage with my tongue stroking over the sweet nub of the woman I wanted more than anything. I spent the next minutes learning everything I could about her every reaction. The sounds she made as I sucked her clit into my mouth, the taste of her as I thrust my tongue into her channel, the sweet pain as her finger pulled with a Guardian's strength at my hair as her hips arched and she screamed my name again, this time as she shook with climax.

I started again, sucking her clit as she squeaked in half want, half pained overstimulation. I swirled the tip of my tongue over her clit, writing her name and mine in runes, in Latin, in Sanskrit and Aramaic. I was branding her in my own mind, claiming her in the only way I would let myself. Then I swiped the broad flat of my tongue over her from her entrance to her clit and she shrieked, curling into a ball around my head and panting out my name over and over again, "Cedric...Cedric...I love you..."

I had been pressing my hips into the mattress, my cock painful and searching for the friction I had ruthlessly denied it, but at the sound of those words I lost any control and my hips rocked into the mattress hard and pleasure rocked through me, my cock erupting with the strongest orgasm I could ever recall, stars in purple and white flashing across my darkened vision. When I recovered, I pulled away from where my face was buried in her folds and looked up into her face, but her eyes were closed, exhaustion overtaking her with a sudden ferocity. She had collapsed back on the bed, her muscles lax, her face finally peacefully.

I stood on shaky legs, my half undone breeches sticky with my seed. I stared down at the debauched vision of sated beauty before me with tears in my eyes. I had helped her, I know. But I had given away the last piece of my heart to her. I was completely hers for the rest of my long lonely life. Even if she hadn't meant the words she whispered in the throes of the pleasure I'd given her, I would cherish them forever. But I wouldn't hold her to them. Perhaps she hadn't know what she said. In the morning, she would have have most likely forgotten. The Heat was an altered state, after all.

I smoothed her gown back over her hips, letting her have what little modesty the gown provided (really, what was her mother thinking, letting a maiden have such a tempting garment?) I reclaimed my wand from the floor where it had dropped, and put it back into the small pocket of reality that I kept up my sleeve. Then I bent to pick her up once again.

Back through my Forest, and then a simple _noseeum_ spell to pass across the Castle grounds and into her rooms. I laid her on her bed, passing a hand over her cheek and she nuzzled my palm. "Cedric..." she whispered. So tempting.

I fled, like the coward I am.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Sofia's POV

That night seemed like a dream – one that subtly changed my view of the world over the coming months. I remember waking up with a smile and his name on my lips. Then my stomach grumbled loudly, and my eyes flew open in embarrassment. But Cedric wasn't next to me, waiting to teach me more about pleasure – ready to love me more. I was alone in my bedchamber, sweaty and sticky and hungry enough to eat my weight in chocolate croissants.

Had it all been a dream? I'd been thinking of Cedric in inappropriate ways for months, but this – this was beyond my wildest dreams. I'd imagined kisses, and I'd learned to touch myself and thought vaguely of him touching me too, but I'd had no idea my body could feel like that, that I could let go so completely, make noises like that, feel so out of control and love every second.

I was a Good Girl. I took my responsibilities seriously, and only strayed from the rules when it was particularly important for the greater good. I raised a hand to my Amulet, which had been remarkably quiet all throughout the intense experience of last night. I had returned to my rooms after dinner, ready to dress in my Forest clothes and run as a wolf under the full Moon with my sorcerer. I remember being almost giddy – desperate to run with him through the trees, wrestle a bit. I imagined us Changing back, him on top of me, his shirt open at the throat, his amber eyes glowing gold in the moonlight as he bent down to kiss me. And then I remember feeling hotter and hotter, more and more vivid images flashing in my mind.

I thought of what he must look like under his clothes, the hints of dark tattoos I'd seen hints of when he rolled up his sleeves and removed his gloves, the lines of his muscles under his clothes. I imagined his lips trailing over my body, whispering words of appreciation as he saw more and more of me revealed. I imagined him inside of me, though I had not the slightest clue how to get to that state other than the few facts my mother had taught me, and the whispers of servants and other Princesses in the halls of Royal Prep.

I had laid back in my bed, in my thinnest night shift, though I wasn't sure how I'd gotten that way. My fingers flew over my body, my breasts, touching myself between my thighs, but nothing felt right – nothing felt like what I needed, what I was desperate for. I remember the Amulet glowing a soft pink, and I was running through the grass, straight into his arms, unsure how I had gotten through the Castle in my nightgown but not caring the least. Part of me wished I couldn't remember all that had happened, how embarrassingly I had acted. I'd thrown myself at Cedric, and though he had indulged me, given me what I needed, I had no real sense if he had done it out of desire, or out of pity for my mad state.

The Amulet had helped me though, not stopped me. Whatever I was doing, it was somehow right. But was it right for Cedric? Did he truly want me, or was he merely treating some animal need I didn't know Guardians had. When he'd kissed me, I'd felt his desire, that strange hardness against my stomach. Some part of him wanted me, but he was so hesitant.

I sat up in my bed, remembering some kind of spell he'd put on himself, wondering what he'd done to himself to give himself the courage to touch me at all. Part of me wanted to run across the castle and straight into his tower and demand answers (and probably more of what he'd been doing last night), and part of me wanted to hide in my room and never come out again. How could I ever look him in the face again without turning beet red? How could I ever be in the same room with him without wanting him to kiss me and touch me and do all those wonderful things to my body.

I'd told him I loved him. And then I'd fallen asleep. Way to go, Sofia.

There was a knock on the door. "Princess Sofia? Are you there?"

It was Baileywick. I pulled the disheveled bedclothes over my too-thin nightgown. "Come in."

The door opened and he stepped just over the threshold, only as far as was precisely appropriate for a male servant in the bedroom of an unmarried Princess. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Princess Sofia, but you are usually up far earlier than this. Violet tried to rouse you earlier and said you seemed very deeply asleep but restless. Are you feeling quite well?"

I fervently hoped that Violet's human nose had not detected the scent of sex and sweat all over me. Even if I was still very much a virgin, it would do no one any good to suspect what had happened last night. "I'm afraid it took my a very long time to fall asleep last night and I'm still a bit peaked. Perhaps I am fighting off an illness?"

"Say no more, Princess. I'll have the kitchen send up some vegetable broth and fresh bread. You rest here as long as you need to. I'll let Princess Amber know that you will be delayed in the latest planning session for your Birthday Ball." Baileywick gave a smart little bow and retreated out the door, closing it gently behind him.

I let my head fall back into the pillows and sighed dramatically. I didn't really want to be stuck in my room for the entire day, but I didn't have the strength of heart to go out and track down my sorcerer yet either.

After a simple yet filling meal Violet came in to fuss over me, and convince me to take a relaxing bath. I didn't really want to wash his scent off of me, as I had a horrible fear it was the closest I would ever get to him marking me as his. I didn't really have the least idea about Guardian mating practices, but that much I understood on instinct. I needed him to claim me, and he had not yet done so and I felt empty and lost as a result.

I sat soaking in a hot bath, mindlessly watching steam rise from the water and feeling sorry for myself, then my Amulet began to glow a soft pink once again. I should have blushed in embarrassment, but after last night having a Princess show up in my bathroom while I was naked didn't really rate highly on my personal scale of shame.

In a shower of golden sparks, Pocahontas, bright jewel of the Powhatan, stepped forward, seating herself gracefully on the bathroom rug with an amused smile.

"Hello, Sofia of Enchancia. What troubles you so that it follows you into your bathing rituals?"

I laughed. It was really a ridiculous time for a princess to show up, but the Amulet knew what it was doing.

"I'm in love with a man who I'm not sure cares for me in the same way. He...we are both Guardians. Do you know..."

"Of course I know. Guardians are common to all peoples. Guardians understand the beauty of the forest like few others do. I am not surprised that you are one of the Honored Ones, Sofia." Pocahontas picked up a pitcher of warmed water and poured it into the bathtub, and I sighed, feeling tension leave my muscles with the scent of lavender and lemon swirling in the humid air. "But a Guardian male usually makes it unquestionably clear who he would take for a mate. Does he run from you? Does he refuse to touch you?"

I blushed now, memories from the night before rushing back – the fervent need behind that first kiss, the feel of his hands on my thighs, the wet drag of his tongue across my most intimate flesh. "No, no he doesn't refuse to touch me. But, I think he is only….he's humoring me."

Pocahontas arched an eyebrow in question, "You are an intelligent woman, noble in spirit and brave of heart. You are likely a magnificent...let me see," Pocahontas cocked her head to the side and pursed her thin lips, "Wolf. You are a wolf, yes? You mate for life?"

I blinked at her, my stomach dropping. Did I want to mate for life with a partner that didn't want me? Would I never find another love? I couldn't imagine being with another man, having someone touch me like he had. Would that be the only passion I ever got to experience?

I must have somehow given her a positive response to her questions, for she continued, "And how long have you know this wolf man? Have you only just met?"

"I've known him more than half my life. He is...he was my teacher."

Pocahontas nodded sagely. "Is he also one of your chiefs? A...prince? This is important in your world, yes?"

I bit my lip. "He's the Royal Sorcerer – the best Royal Sorcerer. And he rules in the forest. But no, he's not a prince. But I don't care about that!"

"But does he care? You are a princess, and he is not your equal."

"I wasn't born a princess. And I really truly don't care!"

"Is he older than you?"

I sank deeper into the water, almost tempted to submerge completely and escape this inquisition. "Yes, he is older than me. But we will both live a very long time, so what will it matter when he is a hundred and I'm eighty five? _I _don't think it's important!"

"It's not about what you think, but what he does."

Those words stuck me like a hammer blow to my head. I had been self-centered, thinking only of my needs, my desires. I was actually surprised the Amulet hadn't just cursed me and made me figure out what I had done to deserve it.

"Oh! Was that what happened to me last night? The insane wantonness? Did the Amulet curse me so that I practically mauled Cedric and forced him to pleasure me?"

Pocahontas blinked at me, her mouth open. I blushed so red I think my hair turned magenta. Then she laughed, her voice as musical as wind chimes. "Oh you people are so very prudish and backwards about sex. I doubt you could have forced him to do anything he didn't want to do."

"But I was in pain and he helped me."

"And he didn't seem like he was enjoying himself in the least?"

Well, he had actually kissed me first. And he made the most tempting noises as he'd touched me and licked me. Did that mean he had been willing to see me as more than a student he was obligated to teach?

"What you likely experienced was the Heat. Grandmother Willow once told me of it. A tribe member went through something similar, after many years of she and her mate having no children. She went a little mad, her mate took her away deep into the woods for a time, and then later that year gave birth to twins. She was a fox when the moon was high, and guarded all the forest creatures from unnatural foe."

I turned the thought over in my head. Children. Was that what this was all about? I was ripe to have children. Although someday in the future I certainly wanted a family with Cedric and to bear his children, I didn't want that yet. I wanted enjoy some time with him first. If I ever actually got him.

"So, you think perhaps he does return my feelings, but that he thinks I'm too young and too highly placed for him to court?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he thinks another mate would suit you better than he. He may want what is best for you."

I huffed in annoyance. "I have no interest in any other suitors. I've had to put up with drinking enough tea and enough sedate rides through the park with minor second sons and lords suitable for a princess of peasant birth. He is exactly what I want as well as what is best for me."

"It is not me you have to convince, Sofia. It's him. Let him see that you know your own mind. Wait for a while. Let him see that you are mature enough to make a decision that will last a very long time." She smiled. "You might also want to make sure he sees you with some of these other suitors. Jealousy might make him reconsider his convictions."

We shared a very feminine smile, and with another light show from the Amulet, Pocahontas returned to her own time and place. And I had a few things to think over.

I didn't see Cedric until the next day. I entered his tower without knocking, and he froze as I entered, his eyes wide and just a bit terrified.

I cleared my throat. "I want to say thank you, for helping me when I was so desperate. I hope that the experience wasn't too unpleasant."

He opened his mouth, but nothing but a squeak came out. Wormwood squawked in riotous laughter from his perch. "No worries, Princess. He came back here smelling like sex and grinning like a loon. He even had a wet dream last night, crying out your name, and he hasn't had one of those since he was a boy!"

I blushed, though I'd promised myself I wouldn't and Cedric stomped across the room and shooed Wormwood out of the window with a bellow of rage and a "Poseidon's Pumpkins." I wasn't sure Cedric could understand Wordwood as clearly as I could when in human form, but he must have got the gist of the raven's speech, because he was just as red as I was.

He turned back to me and looked at the floor at my feet. "That was the Heat. Some types of female Guardians experience extreme arousal when they are at peak fertility. Usually not this young, but we both know you are far from the typical Guardian. It...it was nothing to be ashamed of, and I am glad I could help you. Don't...you don't have to feel sullied or shamed of it. Your purity is intact for marriage."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Thank you for your restraint. I understand that you may not want to tie yourself to me, so you should not feel obligated to marry me."

His eyes flew up to mine, and I saw what I needed to see. He wouldn't mind marrying me. Not at all. He just had to give in to what we both wanted. "But I can't say I will give up trying to convince you over the next few decades. You know I'm very persistent when I know what I want."

He took a step toward me, then stopped, shaking his head back and forth as though he was trying to wake himself up from a dream. He even pinched himself.

"You are still very young, Princess Sofia, and you have so much of the world to see and people to meet. You can't possibly know..."

"Actually I've been to twenty seven countries, three continents, and met fifty two eligible princes, dukes, lords, boyars or emirs. That's pretty good for not yet being eighteen."

He stared at me for a long time, until his fingers began to fidget and he pulled on his gloves until the yarn began to fray again.

I took pity on him. "So, what was that spell you used last night. It looked pretty painful. Something about your animal nature?"

He finally took a full breath and smiled at me, comfortable in his role as teacher.

"Actually, I should have taught it to you earlier. It's a very old spell, and used to separate..."

I listened intently, and he grew more and more comfortable in my presence. I was still young, and I could bide my time, no matter how torturous it was to be near him and not have him touch me. He was worth the wait.

A week later, my eighteenth birthday came and went with the usual fanfare, with the added pressure that I had been "out" in full society for a year and had yet to enter into any serious courtship. I was actually proud of myself for managing to skillfully redirect any male friends that showed interest to partners who would much more suited (and more interested). Mom ran interference with Dad whenever an offer from a distant kingdom or trading partner. I was not a princess of the blood, and any marriage alliance I could offer the kingdom was unlikely to be important enough to put undue pressure on me to accept. If Dad would have let me, I would have renounced my title and become a duchess like Aunt Tilly, but he said I'd have to wait until at least twenty years old to seek that escape.

The best part about my birthday was the small ball I got to plan mostly myself, despite Amber's endless meetings about it, and the fact that I was able to dance with Cedric not once, but twice. He held himself at a distance, true, but I caught him looking at me more than once. The next day just after breakfast with my family he met me in the hall, and he gave me a delicate silver dagger – an athame, that had belonged to the last female wolf in his family, his great-grandmother. I was awed by the gift, and struck mute at his reason. "This is for your protection, Princess Sofia. Go to the guards and ask for lessons in self defense. Carry the knife, but learn to use it well. As an unmated female wolf, when you are out in the world you will be a target for males to try to take, often by force. You'll need teeth in human form, and if this knife helps protect you it wouldn't be the first time it had done this job." He'd spun away, stomping off through the halls.

I held the knife gingerly, not happy about learning to use a weapon, I always felt there was a way to bridge any misunderstanding, but I would do as he said. I really wished that he would just make the "unmated" part of that obsolete, and that would take care of the problem! Of course, the knife could help me protect my mate as well, should we both come under attack.

I started lessons later that week, much to the approval of the Captain of the Royal Guard. Apparently they were always worried about me given my tendency to land in odd adventures, and they wanted me to be able to defend myself using more than magic. One more lesson, one more responsibility. I filled my mind with etiquette and politics and even Amber's fashion diatribes, and it worked. I almost managed to push away the fear that I would lose control again.

But two weeks later I did succumb to fear the next full moon. We had not run together as wolves for a full month, and I was worried that with the full moon I would once again go mad with lust and throw myself at him. I was terrified that it would push him farther away from me, when he was growing comfortable and even somewhat affectionate with me again.

He'd even let out a low, sub-audible growl when he'd been forced to attend a tea where Prince Desmond did his best to try and convince himself that I was a nice, unthreatening choice to court openly. Though no Guardian, Desmond did seem to somehow get the message that courting me was not a good idea and not at all unthreatening. Cedric smiled when he left, and I was excited at the prospect that he would soon realize that he was really the only possible choice of my heart.

If I fell into Heat again and attacked him, I was afraid I would lose all the ground I'd gained. So I went to bed very early, conjured a lifelike simulation to delicately snore in my bed, and fled into the foothills, away from the heart of the forest that he paroled faithfully. As a wolf, I checked on all the interesting residents of the hill country, running almost as far as Aunt Tilly's estate before turning around. I was achingly lonely without him running next to me, and by the predawn hours I was skirting the edge of the forest near the castle, having caught his distinctive scent. We met as wolves just at the edge of my corner garden, and we returned to human form instinctively. He pulled me into his embrace and we stood there, the moon setting and the sun rising, and breathed in each other's presence in sweet silence.

I put aside my concerns about the Heat. Cedric let me read the few books he'd found about it, and it should not be a problem for several years. I did hope by then I might have convinced him of my faithfulness and commitment to him, and the next Heat would be much more fun for both of us.

We ran together through our Forest, and together we protected those who dwelled there. We did make a very good team, fitting together like a hand in glove. It was everything I could have wanted in a vocation, and he was everything I wanted in a man. Wassalia passed quietly, and I treasured the fingerless gloves he'd given me, a lavender version of the ones he always wears. I keep them on constantly for a month, no matter how many times Amber make acerbic comments on my lack of fashion sense. I had vowed to be patient and prove my lasting love, and every little token, every longing look fed my soul and kept me hopeful.

But everything went wrong – or right – the night of Amber's Hearts Day ball. Always set in the darkest days between Wassalia and the first day of Spring, Hearts Day was usually a minor holiday celebrated between courting couples. But Amber had decided to create the new "Event of the Year" by having an Ball and inviting royalty from all the surrounding kingdoms. I was reasonably sure that Amber just wanted an excuse to dress extravagantly to impress Axel and induce him to enter a formal courtship. Amber was nineteen and had no desire to get to the ripe old age of twenty without being at least formally engaged to a Crown Prince.

The day had started out with strange omens, with the sun in the winter sky and the waxing moon dancing with her sister in the daytime. I felt out of sorts and restless by the time of the ball, eschewing the theme, much to Amber's displeasure, and not wearing blush pink or daring red, but a gown of topaz silk, the color of my sorcerer's eyes. I felt a bit lost among all my old classmates at Royal Prep, most of whom were still attending tea parties and stealing kisses.

The ball was full of confetti hearts and prink and red flowers that Cedric had been forced to conjure late into the night before. There was pink champagne and singing cupids that frolicked overhead when not gossiping loudly about who might be in love with whom. Really, my tastes were much simpler and though I tried to get into the spirit of the day and had slipped a simple heartfelt card under the door of Cedric's tower, I was feeling a bit down when he'd made no similar move.

I was sitting out from dancing with the shyer princes (I was always a safe bet for Desmond or even James when he wanted to escape giggling girls), when I noticed Cedric leaning up against the far wall, a woman in a dark red dress pressed tightly against his side, whispering in his ear, making his cheeks turn red.

That was MY job. I was the one who flirted with him. I was the one who made him blush too hard. He hadn't asked me for even one dance, and had hidden for most of the night so that I couldn't drag him out to the floor, and here he was being practically fondled by some hussy!

She was a decade my senior, closer to Cedric in age, with a fashionably pale complexion compared to my own golden skin, and short blonde hair in a cloud of ringlets and very generous curves. And Cedric was just standing there, letting her stand far too close. I stood abruptly, brushing past Hugo who was just coming to talk to me (and possibly to dance with him, again), and I strode purposefully around the edge of the ballroom. I slowed as I neared Cedric and his hanger-on, listening with ears that heard more than most humans.

"I'm sure you think this is all so dreadfully dull, Cedric. May I call you Cedric? A powerful sorcerer like you should be doing so much more interesting and scintillating activities on such a holiday. Conjuring cherubs for children barely out of the school room? Ha!" I could see the woman sneak a hand against the wall and squeeze his ass. "Wouldn't you rather find something much more adult to do, my sexy sorcerer?" His eyes practically bugged out of his head and he opened his mouth to speak, but there was no way I was letting this go on one more moment.

"Get your hands off of him." I hissed between clenched teeth which seemed to have grown much sharper than usual in my anger.

The woman, who I finally recognized as Lady Penelope, a lady in waiting to Princess Hildegard of Freezenburg, turned her head and gave me a quelling stare. "Go back to your hearts and flowers, Peasant Princess. Leave the real men to a real woman."

A red film seemed to descend over my mind. I barely heard Cedric's outraged exclamation and his backing away from Penelope and stepping toward me. I just growled, loudly, snapping my teeth at the wench. "Mine." I stalked toward her, wanting nothing more than to see her blood flow, my nails long and sharp and wanting to scar those high cheekbones. Cedric gripped my arm tightly, but I was shaking with sudden, overwhelming rage like I had never experienced before. I pulled away, my arm striking out toward Penelope and my nails almost making contact with her face, but Cedric wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me back, giving me a sharp low growl that made me cease struggling immediately.

Hildegard popped out of nowhere, her hand gripping Penelope's arm with her claw like long fingernails. "Sofia! What are you doing!"

I was overwhelmed with horror at what I had wanted to do, the violence I had almost done. Why, if I had been a wolf the woman's neck would have been between my teeth, I was so impossibly angry. Jealous. I stood there with Cedric's arm around me, which loosened suddenly as we started to garner the attention of the room, which had grown unnaturally quiet.

Hildegard stepped closer, thrusting Penelope behind her with the careless negligance of command. "Sofia, are you….Are you a Guardian? A wolf?" Hildegard looked far too interested in me. Usually I was an amusing companion or fodder for gossip, but this time her eyes glittered with a twisted mix of avarice and fear. A hard knot of worry formed in my stomach, though I had no idea why. I was right to be so viscerally scared.

Cedric took charge, pulling on my arm with one hand and wrapping his other arm around my shoulders. "Excuse me, your highness, Lady Penelope. I'm afraid Princess Sofia has not be feeling well and must be overheated. I'll escort her to the royal physician."

Penelope, I refuse to call her a lady, simpered at him from behind Hildegard. "Do come back, Cedric. I'm sure you would like to continue our stimulating conversation."

I growled again, but Cedric grunted and my body froze, obeying him without my conscious thought. His effortless command of me was thrilling, and I was overcome with the sudden heat of arousal blooming in my core. "Lady Penelope, I'm certain that with my roll complete at this affair, my only use will be to aid the Princess with her difficulties. I wish you luck with your...search."

He pulled me away, sweeping me out of the ballroom and on to the terrace, ignoring half-hearted calls of concern from some of my friends. I had enough presence of mind to smile wanly and wave off their concerns, but I was holding on to my sanity by a thread. By the time Cedric had me out in the garden, my dancing slippers growing wet from walking through the light snowfall, I was out of my head. A swirling morass of anger and hope and violence and giddy need made me feel almost dizzy with emotion.

He kept pulling me along by my arm, staring straight ahead and holding his breath, taking shallow gasps of air through his mouth and shuddering each time. "You need to rest Sofia. I have a sleeping potion in my tower that may be able to let you rest through..."

I pulled away from the iron of his grip, then thrust my body toward him, forcing him backward into the thick foliage of an evergreen hedge. Snow puffed out around us with the force with which we'd struck the bushes, and Cedric was half buried within the green needles. I stood on tiptoe and pressed my face into the hollow of his throat, growling softly and then inhaling deeply. He smelled SO good. Underneath the smell of juniper and snow that surrounded us was his unique musk, warm and earthy, combined with dried herbs and a touch of dragonfly dust from the potion he'd been teaching me to make this morning. My tongue snuck out to drag across the skin just over his yellow bow tie and he groaned, his hands coming up to tangle in my hair.

I sank into his body, pushing him back into the bush enough that he was low enough for me to kiss, and then I kissed him like I meant to devour him. I bit his lips, I stroked his teeth with my tongue, I sucked his bottom lip hard enough to taste blood and relish this flavor of him.

It was that thought that woke me from my altered state. I pulled away, staring at him in sudden horror. His cheeks were pink and his lips swollen and his eyes were so dark they looked black. He didn't look like he was protesting all that much, but I couldn't analyze at the time. All I knew was that I'd pinned him in place and attacked him. The Heat. The thrice damned Heat.

I ran, pelting across the snow-covered gardens at full Guardian speed and into the servants' wing, fast enough to appear as a blur. I took every short cut and every back stair and arrived at my chambers, locking the door. I slid to the floor near the door and began to cry. I had threatened a (mostly) innocent human being with violence. I had grown unbearably aroused at Cedric telling me what to do, then I'd turned around and pinned him into a plant in order to kiss him hard enough to draw blood. Big fat tears rolled down my face, and I drew my knees to my chest, burying my face in the yards of silk and wishing it was his skin, his hair, his fur. I barely managed to get out of my clothes and into my bed before blessed sleep finally claimed me, although I was restless, tossing and turning with dreams that tortured me.

The next morning I felt horrible, and looked it. It was a simple thing to convince Violet that I was ill, and to to try and force myself to sleep. But I was up pacing the room in circles, bouncing between anger, sadness and arousal. Six months ago I had had sweet fantasies of a stolen kiss, a soft caress as being enough to fulfill me. But this night I was consumed with thoughts and memories of his kiss, his touch, his fingers and mouth within my most intimate flesh, and I wanted more. Servants and family members visited, and I kept up the front that I was ill and resting, but I went back to restless pacing as soon as I was alone, hoping that somehow I would tire myself out enough to sleep. This couldn't last forever, could it?

I made the mistake in the dead of the night of looking outside while sitting at my window seat. The moon was not yet full, but it was still a potent force to my soul. The next hours were a blur. I remember falling asleep on the floor, curled up as a wolf. Then waking up to a snowfall of white fluff which I late discovered was the white goosedown of my mattress – I'd shredded it with claws at the end of my human hands. Yes, parts of me had Changed without my conscious will, and I was some sort of strange hybrid. I remembered laughing hysterically at the clouds of white feathers and then dancing around the room holding an old stained robe that Cedric had loaned me once after a potions accident and I had managed to never return. I was back to crying and screaming when Violet came in to check on me.

I screamed at her, wordlessly, and she fled. The next thing I remember was my mother barging into the room, Amber dressed in riding gear following close behind, and strangely enough, Axel and Hugo just behind her. I suppose I should have been flattered by all the concern and Amber cutting short her morning ride to check on my health, but I was a crazed inhuman thing, boiling with desire that I couldn't fulfill, and I was in no mood to deal with humans.

If my mother spoke to me, I was beyond understanding. At one point Hugo came bounding across the room, concern in his eyes, and I hissed at him. "No boy. Man. Mate!" My claws and teeth and inability to speak coherently was apparently enough to chase Hugo away for good.

That was the closest to human conversation I could get, and that had taken my amulet glowing bright pink to get past my chapped lips.

Mom shooed everyone out of the room, yelling something, and I was once again alone to wallow in my misery. I lay huddled in the ruins of my mattress and quilts, rocking back and forth and trying to just endure.

Then a scent filled the room and I sat up, staring at the doorway as the door slammed open. My mother and Cedric stood there. She said something to him, but they were just meaningless words. He nodded and stepped forward. Closing the door behind him.

He smelled so good. But I wasn't allowed to get closer to him. Not allowed. Why not? I climbed off the bed, uncaring that I was only wearing shreds of the nightgown I'd put on two nights ago, and my skin was covered in slashes from the too sharp claws on my fingers. I stalked toward him slowly, and he watched me, eyes wide and so dark. Later I would remember how tired and drawn he looked, as though he'd been through every bit of the hell I had gone through.

He swallowed thickly and I followed the movement of his Adam's apple with my eyes, wanting to lick his neck, wanting to tear off all the silly coverings he wore. Then he raised a stick, pointing at the bed, which repaired itself, feathers returning from the chaos of the room back into neat order. It was powerful and beautiful and I took another unconscious step toward him, wanting him, his magic, his body.

Then the stick turned on me and I was floating through the air, back on to the mattress and the sheets were dancing above me, ripping into the strips which suddenly attacked me, binding my hands and feet to the bedposts before I could even think to move.

I howled, angry at being restrained, and I completely forgot that I wasn't supposed to want the man with the marvelous scent. I was supposed to stay away from him. I fought my bonds and growled. He pointed his stick at himself and collapsed to the ground in pain and I howled more, this time in terror. What happened to him? He was mine, MINE!

He approached the bed, placing the stick on a nearby dresser, and shrugging out of his robes, pulling off his neckcloth, leaving him in a simple linen shirt and breeches. He toed off his shoes and sat next to my hip. He raised a hand to cup my cheek, and the contact of his skin against mine cooled me, soothed me. His words I could almost understand. "I'm so sorry, Sofia. I'm so sorry I have to do this to you, but all the books say there's no other choice without risking permanent harm to you or your magic."

I turned my head into his hand and licked his palm, the salty taste of his skin ecstasy. I struggled to make words, the amulet glowing once again to aid me. "Please. Please...love me."

He took a deep breath, then leaned forward, pressing his lips to mine in a soft, sweet, very human kiss. I tried to follow him when he pulled away, snapping my teeth and trying to catch his lip, but he smirked a bit and shook his head side to side. This time when he leaned down, he pulled aside the shreds of my nightgown and revealed my left breast, then nuzzled the underside of the mound, pressing soft kisses that made me buck and growl in impatience. He listened, pulling my nipple into his mouth this a harsh suck that sent lightning straight to my womb and I yipped in approval, arching my back and pressing my chest into his mouth. He pushed the shreds of cloth away from my other breast and plucked at that nipple with his long fingers and I twisted back and forth, begging him for more.

He moved from one breast to the other, licking and sucking and even biting softly, until finally my nipples were so hard and I was so tightly wound with the need of days of unrelenting arousal, I climaxed with a shout after a particularly effective suck on one nipple and a twist of the other.

The look on his face as he sat up would have been comical had I been in my right mind – a combination of shock and utter masculine smugness. He smirked at me, "I must be a natural at this."

If I had been Sofia, Princess of Enchancia and not Sofia, Wolf in Heat, I would have rolled my eyes and tackled him to the bed, proving that I could drive him just as mad. But all I could do was yank at the cloth binding me to the bedposts and growl.

He looked at my arms where they were bound and frowned, sorrow falling across his face like a cloud across the sun. He stared into my crazed eyes and begged. "You want this, yes? You want relief? You want _me_ to give you relief?"

The amulet glowed again, lighting up both our faces with rose-colored light. I struggled to bring forth a single word.

"Mate!"

He drew back, eyes wild, and bit his lip hard. The glow of the Amulet faded, as did my control of language. I whined, piteously, but I had no shame left, only need.

He clenched his fists, and then spread his fingers wide, pulling off one and then the other fingerless glove, leaving his long fingers bare except for the fine black tattoos of runes along the backs of his hands up to his first knuckles.

Then his fingers stroked over my stomach, my hips, petting my thighs with one hand as the other drew the fabric of my gown up to my waist, revealing my calves, my thighs and my mons to the light of the morning sun shining through my windows and to Cedric's amber colored eyes.

I arched my body toward his, desperate for relief. One orgasm was not enough to quell the burning in my blood. When his fingers stroked over my labia, feeling how wet and slick I was, I whimpered again, needing more.

He stopped being gentle at that point. I closed my eyes, concentrating on raw sensation as his fingers circled around my nub. Then he pressed it with his thumb as one long finger pushed slowly inside of me. It was slightly uncomfortable, but I quickly needed more, bucking my hips and driving him deeper. He added another finger, sliding slowly within me and pressing, testing. It was too slow, too precise, but when he found that spot high against the front wall of my channel it was suddenly perfect. I howled, bucking my hips again but he stayed with me, one arm pinning my hips to the bed while the other slid inside me, stroking that spot over and over as his thumb mashed down on the nub I stroked when I thought of him in the depths of the night in this very bed.

I screamed, my body convulsing with hot, hard pleasure. Relief coursed through my veins, but it still wasn't enough. I was still more animal than woman, and all too soon my head began to thrash against the pillows, my limbs pulling at my restraints.

"Please, please!" I whispered, my voice hoarse.

At least I had regained the use of some words. His fingers held magic, and he lightened his touch, pulling his fingers from within me and just swirling lightly, too lightly, over the engorged nub that still throbbed with my last climax.

"Sofia, look at me."

My eyes opened, and he hovered, leaning into my chest, his eyes perhaps a foot from mine. He was too close, too intimate. It was exactly what I needed. He held my gaze captive and thrust his fingers within me again, three this time, pushing against that spot within me over and over and over until I broke, shrieking his name, his dark eyes holding mine throughout everything.

I kept watching his face as his eyes traced down my body,, I watched him look at his fingers deep within me, and I watched as he pulled his fingers from me and brought them to his lips just as he had the last time I'd gone mad, inhaling the scent of my pleasure before thrusting them into his mouth like his favorite candy. I remembered everything he'd done months ago, and nothing could describe the pleasure of his mouth on me.

I moaned, arousal spiking once again, and he blinked up at me, a guilty look of pleasure on his face.

"More?"

"Please!"

He climbed on to the bed, awkwardly scrambling over my bound legs. Impatient, he waved a hand at the bedposts and my feet were free. He pulled my legs over his shoulders with easy strength and pressed his mouth to my sex. His tongue gave a long, flat stroke to my nub, his eyes raising once more up to mine. "Cedric. Cedric!"

Suddenly I couldn't stop saying his name. Moaning it, growling it, screaming it as his tongue dipped deep inside of me and his nose pressed against my nub. I came that way, that long pointed, aristocratic nose pushing against me. I had come over and over, and every muscle ached pleasantly. My mind was slowly returning, though my sense of shame was still held at bay by hormones run amok.

He pulled away from me slightly, a broad smile of accomplishment on his face. He was so sweetly happy to bring me pleasure that my heart thudded against my chest, my breath caught as my love swelled within me. But the hormones won, and love turned to lust. It wasn't enough this time to have him pleasure me. I wanted to pleasure him.

I was always a bit too selfless for my own good. But never had I needed to be so devious in order to indulge my selfless tendencies. I wrapped my legs around his neck, holding him to me as one of my hands bent in a distinctive pattern, calling Cedric's wand to me from my bedside dresser. Once I had a wand and my mind was more human, it was a simple matter to release myself from my remaining restraints, reverse our positions on the bed, and charm the same sheets he'd used to tie me up to tie his hands where my feet had been, and his feet where my hands had been. I grinned down at him, twirling his wand between my fingers, which once again had human nails, as I straddled his waist, feeling the bump of his manhood pressing against my bum through his breeches.

"My turn, Cedric."

"Sofia, you aren't in your right mind! You don't..."

"Be quiet, or I'll have to hex you into silence. I don't want to do that, because I want to hear what sounds you'll make. Now, you may have had a lot of experience with naked women at your mercy, but I would very much like to have experience with one particular naked man."

Another flick of the wand, and the buttons of his shirt popped off, revealing his chest. I dropped the wand on the floor, hoping Cedric didn't try the same trick I had. The tattoos I'd only seen hints of were revealed, thick black lines of text in several languages forming sacred circles and swirls through the sparse dark hair on his chest. I wanted to study every one, trace my fingers, and my tongue over every line of script, every inch of skin. So I did. I started at his jaw, pressing kisses, flicking my tongue to taste him, inhaling each nuance of his scent. It was different, after the spell to strip him of his animal nature, but he was still very much my Cedric.

Oh, and the sounds he did make. Whimpers and squeals and pleading. Initially he was begging for me to let him go, but eventually he was begging me for more. I moved down his body. My tongue circled over his tattoos, and I sucked on his hard flat nipples as he had done to mine. My fingers traced over the firm lines of his wiry muscles, until I finally met the barrier of his waistband.

"Sofia, Sofia think about this, are you..."

"Oh trust me I have thought about this." I quipped back, the Heat giving me confidence where I truly had none. My fingers shook as I pulled at the laces of his breeches where a hard lump was pushing against the fabric. I'd tried this last time and been unsuccessful. This time I wanted to see him. I needed to see him. "You know how curious I am, and I've never seen..."

"Neither have I."

My eyes locked with his. He shrugged the action pulling at the ties that bound his hands to the bedposts. "I've seen a man of course. Can't bloody help but see myself. But a real woman, the most intimate bits. Just books. And you."

I swallowed, overcome with what he had done for me, what I hoped this meant. "Those were good books." He smiled. "I want to see them." His eyes grew huge.

Whatever he was going to say in response to my demand was lost as I managed to pull apart the last lacing on his breeches and the fabric pushed aside, revealing the tip of him pressed against his smallclothes. I pushed and shoved his breeches and smallclothes down his hips and under his bum as he squeaked out sounds with a red face.

His male part...his cock, that was the word the maids used when they whispered and thought I couldn't hear them gossip...his cock stood straight up, the skin darker here, and the tip of him an angry red, deeper than the blush on his face. I stared, wide eyed, and wondering how in the world this was supposed to go inside me. I knew that what was supposed to happen, but not how. Perhaps touching him like he touched me would be enough to give him pleasure?

I wrapped a hand around him, curiosity and need for him thrumming within me. He yelped, his head whipping back into the mattress, his hips bucking and he thrust in my grip. "Sofia!" he cried out, his voice surprisingly deep compared to the squeals from earlier. I stroked my fingers over him, feeling him throb and twitch in my hand, like this part of him was under my control and not his own.

"Aphrodite's Ass!" Cedric bit out, and I smiled widely, my blood surging hotter and hotter. I let go of him completely, which made him groan in protest. I sat up straight, whipping the remains of my nightgown over my head, my knotted and unkempt hair spreading out in a wild cloud around my shoulders. He stared at me, his mouth a perfect circle of shock. I relished the attention, though the faintest traces of embarrassment leaked through. Instead of moving to cover myself, I moved farther down the bed, laying my nude body between his spread legs, my breasts pressing against the fabric still covering his thighs and my head hovering by his hip, I wrapped my hand once again around his now practically purple cock, and he groaned again, this time his usual, "Merlin's Mushrooms!" followed by a sharp, "Fucking hell!" as I stroked the ring of my fingers down to the base where his manhood joined with his abdomen in a nest of dark crinkly hair. I moved back up to the top slowly, and half way up I heard him grit out. "Harder. Tighter."

I turned my head into his hip, smiling into the taut skin there, inhaling his scent, so strong and thick here near the root of him. I obeyed his demands, tightening my grip, moving from top to bottom over and over again. Then I turned to watch my hand move over him, entranced by the rhythm of it, feeling his hips under me moving to chase my hand, and my own hips pressing against the mattress, desperate for friction.

Then I noticed a drop of liquid at the very tip of him, and the scent of it overwhelmed me. It was pure Cedric, salty and musky. Without conscious realization I'd moved to hover over him, my tongue sneaking out to taste that white drop.

"Titania's Tits! Sofia!"

Another lick over the bulbous head of him as my eyes looked toward his face. He was clearly gobsmacked, panting for breath, his eyes so dark they looked like the sky at the deepest part of night, his body shaking.

I took the head of him into my mouth, going with the instincts my blood sang to me. I still watched him, and so I saw his eyes slam shut and his teeth bite into his lower lip. I could not have imagined a sexier sight. I felt triumphant as I swirled my tongue around him, chasing that flavor, that scent of him that was so irresistible. I sucked hard and he screamed.

"Sofia, if you don't stop what you are doing I'm not going to be able to...gah..."

His cock grew harder in my mouth, swelling even more, and then his flavor inundated me, I pulled back in surprise, which resulted in him spurting his seed on my lips and chin. I swallowed, my tongue darting out to collect what had been painted on my face and he growled softly – the animal within him not completely banished after all.

I looked up to see his eyes on fire, glowing with a dark light that thrilled me to my core, I climbed up his body until I could press my lips to his, stroke his tongue with mine. He tasted himself on my tongue willingly, eagerly, kissing me with all the fire and desire I could have ever wanted. My body pressed against his, relishing the feel of my breasts against his chest, his already hardening cock pressing against my wet lower lips. I began to roll my hips, searching for the delicious sensation of his hardness pressing against my nub.

He pulled and yanked at his bindings, and I should have freed him, should have given him a choice, but I was too caught up in how I felt, how I wanted to make him feel. I eased my nub over the thick ridge of his cock over and over, my hips controlled purely by instinct. It wasn't quite enough.

I pushed upward, sitting more fully on him, pressing my nub harder on to the hardening thickness of him, bouncing slightly, testing every motion my hips could make to see if it would give me what I needed. He groaned and swore, and I stared down at him with half hooded eyes, watching him look at me with an expression of pure need.

He grit out a phrase in a voice so deep I could feel it vibrate through me, "Vincula nulla!" And his arms and legs were free, the cloth strips completely disappearing. His hands went to my hips, his grip tight enough I would have bruises the next day. He planted his feet and arched his back, and the wonderful pressure and friction I had been playing with soared to a sweet pleasure that sang along my nerves and flashed at the edges of my vision. I was so very close to climax, but he kept me at the edge for long minutes, rolling his hips with mine, grinding together, sometimes cupping one of my breasts, sometimes caressing my cheek and a move so tender I knew he must love me.

Then, in some accident of angle or eagerness, the tip of his cock slipped just a bit into my channel. We both stopped, frozen. I wanted him. I wanted to be claimed, the mystery to be over and to start a long life of pleasure and belonging and magic.

He looked to be almost in pain, his arms shaking as he held my hips still. "Sofia, if I do this, if we do this now, in your Heat, you will end up bearing my child. You'll be tied to me for a lifetime, a long lifetime. I won't be able to let you go – I'm not that good a man. Is that what you want?"

I stared down at him, his words cooling my ardor enough to let me think. I didn't want a baby yet. Of course I wanted his child, no other man's, but I was still young. Did that mean he would be willing to do this another time, when I wasn't controlled by the Heat?

Apparently he took my long pause as an answer. He lifted me up, tumbling us over on to our sides, pulling his hips far from mine. He buried his head in my neck and his fingers – three long fingers, into my core. He thrust them in hard and fast, not letting me think, not letting me breathe! I clutched on to his arms, frozen in place as I tidal wave of sensation washed over me, breaking when he took his other hand and pinched my nub between his fingers. I screamed harshly, tears in my eyes.

I was still shaking with it, unable to move as he rolled off the bed, clutching the waistband of his breeches, his cock jutting out straight and so hard. He dipped down to the floor and grabbed his wand, before looking me in the eye with a sad smile and disappearing in a puff of green smoke.

That arse. That unmitigated, cowardly, handsome, talented, sneaky and too-noble-for-his-own-good arse!

I turned into my pillows and screamed out my frustration, beating my fists on the feather mattress he'd so recently repaired.

Damn him for being right. Now was not the time. But soon. Very soon.

He could run fast. But I could do. We matched well that way.

Author's Note: Notice any glaring mistakes? Tell me so I can fix it! Reviews and critique are gold!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was truly one of my greatest feats of magic, to transport accurately in such circumstances.

I was quite proud of myself that I appeared in my bedchamber, and not in the middle of the Great Hall during luncheon with my shirt open, my cock hanging out of my breeches and the scent of the second Princess's pleasure smeared all over my face. As it was I clutched on to my bedpost, my knees weak, as my other hand stroked my thrice-damned cock with harsh speed to a spectacular climax, my mind still filled with the sights and sounds and scents of Sofia.

It was bad enough that every night since her first Heat I had been tortured with visions of her thrashing in pleasure on my fingers. No, now I would be tortured night and day with the memory of her pink lips wrapped around my cock, moving from innocent exploration to sensual perfection in mere moments. And then the sight of her atop me, grinding her hips into mine – Merlin's bloody mushrooms and Diana's ruddy dildos I would never get that out of my head. I didn't want to. I wanted to live in that moment for the next hundred years.

I collapsed into a fitful sleep after I'd come, only to wake up hours later with the Auferte animalis spell having faded and me still covered in the scent of my desired mate in Heat.

Oh, I had wanted respect. I had wanted power. I had wanted the heads of my enemies on a platter (well, not lately, too much blood), but I had never wanted anything so much as to bury myself inside of her Royal Highness, Princess Sofia Esmeralda Balthazar FitzRoland Winslow.

This time I "waxed my wand" not once, but twice, during a long thorough shower as I tried to get her scent off of me. Then I spent my time being professionally miserable, thinking that I had lost any chance with her. Why had I been so stupid, to make her face the future of life with me, children with me, rather than let her give in to her passions and take what she wanted from me? Sofia would be happy. She'd force herself to be happy with me, it was what she did – excel at being happy.

But I was so greedy. I wanted MORE. I wanted her to want me as I wanted her, day and night, waxing moon and waning moon, human and wolf. I didn't just want to be the cure to her Heat, a means to an end. I wanted to be her everything.

A full two days went by, and I paced around my tower enough to wear holes in all the Tangu carpets in my rooms. I didn't dare go outside, for fear that the smallest trace of her scent would make me charge to her side and take what she kept offering. I didn't eat, couldn't sleep, and had a two day growth of beard as I mourned what could have been if I had been more cunning and less greedy.

It was a surprise when the portrait in my workroom glowed and Father appeared rather than Mother. His brow was drawn and he actually looked worried about me. He took a deep breath to speak and then stopped suddenly, a smile on his face. "So, she's gone into Heat then, has she? You've finally worked everything out? Where is she, and why do you look so terrible, son?"

I stared at him, utterly flummoxed. He knew Sofia was a wolf Guardian, it had been impossible to keep it from him or Mumsy popping in to check on me far too often, but he hadn't given the least clue that he expected us to end up paired together.

"It's much more complicated then that, Father. She, she's suffering and I helped as best I could," I don't think I had ever blushed this hard in front of him, "But she is still untouched in all the ways that would matter to a marriage of state."

He squinted at me, as though he hadn't quite heard me right. "That girl has been chasing you on one level or another for a decade. She's the only werewolf female in a thousand miles, and she chooses you, and you want her to make a loveless marriage of state, boy? Are you insane?"

Anger flooded through me, hot and thick, "I love her! I love her and I'm not good enough for her and she deserves a bloody prince and for once in my life I am trying to be noble so just shut up and go away!"

"She is not a princess of the blood. I doubt any prince has made her an offer, or at least not a crown prince with a kingdom to inherit. I doubt she could aim any higher than a Duke, which you are since I abdicated, so there shouldn't be a problem then, should there. Love conquers all."

I blinked at him, wondering if he'd gotten into the brandy again. Mother swore her spell on the liquor cabinet was full-proof.

He continued to stare at me expectantly, then he flinched. "Oh, oh dear. I thought I had told you. I didn't when you were young, you know. Didn't want you flaunting it at Hexley and getting bullied about it or getting a big head. And then there were all the accidents and I wasn't sure….well, by the time you'd shown what a capable sorcerer and quality Guardian you were, it didn't much make a difference and it never mattered much to me or your Grandfather so..."

"Father, somewhere in the last five minutes you managed to imply that I am in fact not a mere common sorcerer, equivalent in rank to the baker or the butcher, but rather than I am a Duke. Are you sure you haven't struck your head recently?"

"A sorcerer always holds some kind of rank by virtue of their sheer power! A butcher indeed, really Cedric, your dark sense of humor will get you..."

"Father! This is important. Are you doing this to torture me or..."

Father flicked his wand and off of the bookshelf jumped a copy of the Enchancian Charter, the document which enshrined the earliest founding and laws of Enchancia. He used his wand to speed through page after page of parchment, until nodding in satisfaction. "There, page one hundred and eighty eight. Start with the bold text."

I took the book and read aloud. "**Sovereignty of the Forest**. Be it known to all good men and creatures within the borders of the mountains to the East and the seas of the West, that the length of forest running the length of this Good Land is under the protection and rule of the Guardians of this land. Those Guardians henceforth serve the King and his men as Sorcerer Royal and in return the sovereign control of said Forest falls to the family of the Sorcerer Royal of Enchancia in perpetuity. This sovereign holding bequeaths the Guardian the rank of Duke, Lord Silva, until he or she chooses an heir to succeed them, or the line fails to produce an heir of power."

My voice trailed off, and I was dumbfounded. I, Cedric the Bumbling, Bed Sick, Red Brick, Not Quick Cedric, was a Duke. A sovereign Duke. Lord Silva. Lord Cedric of Silva.

Duchess Sofia of Silva. Maybe it was enough. Maybe I was enough.

No, no one was good enough, but it was better than I could have dreamed five minutes previously.

"So now, son. I expect a wedding soon. Your mother is already bothering you about grandchildren, and it will only get worse, but take my advice and wait a bit. If you managed to get through the first Heat without..."

"Two. Two Heats." I answered mechanically, still in shock.

He paused, clearly flustered. "My goodness, son, your restraint is to be honored. Bravo. But much more of that and don't you think she is going to feel terribly rejected? If her body has put her through two heats, and she's not even seen two decades of life, she must really be calling to you, son. Don't you think her heart must be involved, as well as her hormones?"

I nodded, slowly, and sank into a chair, lost in thought. I didn't even notice when Father left, my brain was whirling in circles. Then there was a knock at the door, and I started awake. Was it Sofia? What should I do?

I ran to the door and opened it hard enough for it to slam into the wall behind with a resounding thud. But it was not Sofia, alas. It was Baileywick.

"Cedric. The Queen is asking for your attendance upon her in her study." He eyes me up and down in distaste. "You might want to make yourself presentable."

The summons from Queen Miranda was not unexpected. If Sofia was showing such clear signs of being a Guardian, it must have come from somewhere, and the Queen must want answers to what was happening to her precious daughter. She also no doubt wanted assurances that whatever I had done to soothe Sofia's "curse", that her daughter was still a virgin suitable for marriage, and that I shouldn't be executed for defiling the kingdom's beloved jewel. "I'll be right down." I took pleasure, as I always did, in slamming the door in that prick Steward's face.

I spelled my beard away and cleaned and dressed myself, making proliferate use of grooming spells to use up my nervous energy. When I was this anxious, goddess knows what bumbling mistakes I could make, but grooming spells were so ingrained I could do them in my sleep.

The Queen's study was filled with light, even in winter, with a warm fire at the hearth and sturdy but beautiful furniture. It was as naturally elegant as the Queen herself. I stepped in the room to have Baileywick huff indignantly behind me and shut the door with a thud, leaving me apparently trapped inside with a wide eyed Sofia. And only Sofia. Beautiful, brilliant, and uncharacteristically melancholy – I wanted to stride across the room and pull her into my arms and never, ever let her go.

Instead, I stepped back, plastering myself to the door like an idiot. "Did you do this? You know the King will kill me if he finds me alone with you after what happened."

She frowned at me, a wrinkle slicing her brow that I wanted to kiss away, the thought hitting me so hard my heart ached with it. "No, I didn't send for you. Mom sent for me. What are you doing here?" Her voice held concern and disappointment and sadness, and I wanted it all to go away. I wanted her happy and whole. Why is it that doing the noble thing, the right thing, seemed to make Sofia even more miserable?

"Your mother sent for me. I thought she had questions about...about what happened the other night."

"She probably does. She hasn't asked me anything, though I've been half insensible for the past two days." She did look tired and wan, but still the loveliest thing in my universe. My nose told me the Heat had finally passed. She wore a lavender gown, reminding me only slightly of the gowns she wore as a child. This was a simple day dress, with few petticoats but made with the finest of muslins. It was a dress for comfort, and she looked breathtaking in it.

I stared at her, the woman I loved more than anything else in the world. Her blue eyes held mine with such a sad love shining in them that I felt like I was drowning in it, and words came pouring out of me as I thrashed to keep my head above water. "I wanted to trap you, you know. As a female Guardian and a wolf at that, you are shockingly rare and valuable. To have you as my mate would have raised my prestige to new heights, above and beyond taking over Enchancia.

"Yes, you know that I was after your Amulet for years. That I wanted to rule. That when I first knew you I had no respect as a sorcerer from my father, no responsibilities to the forest. I wanted to claim what I thought was my right, my power. You taught me to see things differently. You taught me to be happier with what I had, with what I could make and do and be myself.

"So of course I wanted you. I wanted you to keep making me better. .But then I realized I wasn't giving you a choice. You have a right to real happiness. And there is little chance that happiness could be me. I'm just who you are used to." I closed my eyes and turned away, unable to bear to see the disappointment that must be roiling in Sofia by now.

Well, I was wrong about that. She shouted at me, loud enough that the walls seemed to ring with her fervor. "I love you! Can't you see that you've already given me a choice?" I turned to stare at her, awe filling me to hear those words from her. But she went on, "Just acknowledging that I have a choice, that you or Mom or Dad can't decide for me, that I have my own needs and desires, you've already given me a choice. But you make all of that go away if you don't let me make the choice I want and let me choose you!" Her eyes flashed like blue fire, and her voice rung with such conviction. I wanted to believe her, so very much. I stepped forward and she stepped toward me, ready for an embrace, for acceptance, for completion, when the door open and Queen Miranda stepped inside.

"Very good, you are both here. I'm certain you have questions."

Sofia and I both blinked at her, dropping our arms and stepping away from each other nervously. Sofia regained her voice first. "Why would we have questions, Mom? Don't you want to know what happened the other night? Why Cedric would..."

"You must have gone into Heat, Sofia. It's clear that Cedric must be your mate, so it would make sense that you would need him then."

We both stared at her, eyes wide. "Your majesty, you knew that Sofia was….that I was….I...I can assure you that I did nothing to the princess that is….permanent. She is still a maiden. I just treated, I tried…."

Queen Miranda arched an eyebrow at me. "Your restraint should be commended, Cedric. I assumed that this discussion would be on how to explain to Rollie that the two of you would need to be married with all haste. Now we have some time to do things properly." She sat down primly on the plum color sofa and reached for the tea service on the small table at the center of the room.

"Mom! How did you know?" Sofia was red as a tomato, her blush extending all the way down the décolletage of her lavender dress. She looked good enough to eat.

Queen Miranda sighed, and finished pouring cups of tea. "I should have told you all of this long ago, Sofia. But Birk was always so convinced that you weren't like him, that you couldn't be – girls just didn't survive if they were like him." She handed a cup of tea to Sofia, and then to me. Perfectly made the way I liked it. I had no idea the Queen knew me half so well.

Sofia sank into a chair with her cup and took a sip of her tea out of reflex. "Mom – was my father, was he like me? A Guardian?"

"Somewhat. He claimed he did not make a good Guardian, that no one from his family did. He could become a wolf, though he Changed very rarely. Said he was scared his family would find him if he did. Freezenburg is not a good place to be a wolf, apparently. But it's not just from your father. You never got to meet my Abuelita Esmerelda. Do you remember the stories I would tell you about her?

Conversation continued on, and part of me was listening. But another part was utterly focused on the word "Freezenburg".

"You named me after her, my middle name at least. You told me she loved the forest in Galdiz. That she thought she talked with animals and loved them more than people sometimes." Sofia smiled softly.

Miranda nodded. "There was a good reason for that. She was a Guardian – though in Galdiz they were apparently very rare and misunderstood. She kept it a secret, and married a man who didn't ask her many questions. Your grandmother and I can not change, but I can still feel the pull of the moon on occasion. Your father told me that's why we were a good fit. Not quite real Guardians, but happy with our lot."

"But why didn't you tell me earlier, Mom? You've never talked very much about my father. I never pushed, I didn't want to make you sad, but this was important! My father could change into a wolf! I've known I was different since I was fourteen, and if it wasn't for Cedric's training me I would have gone crazy. What would you have done then?"

Queen Miranda pursed her lips into a smile that was both rueful and amused. "It was simply that between your own natural maturity and Cedric's secret trainings," her eyes flicked toward me with a touch of rebuke and I finally sat with a thump on another chair at Sofia's side, tea sloshing into my saucer. The Queen continued, "It was as though you were more like me – I never thought you were being so affected. It was only very recently that I began to suspect, but you never seemed out of control, not until the other night. Cedric has taught you very well."

I sat a little straighter, and sipped my tea, my brain still swimming through molasses to catch up with the strangeness of this conversation.

"But if I had needed to explain, if you were truly in trouble, I knew there were other Guardians in the world. If worse came to worse, I could always speak with King Henrik, and he could help me find Birk's family."

I finally shook out of my stupor at this explanation. "Henrik of Freezenburg? Why him? You are certain that Sofia's father said he was from Freezenburg?"

She raised an elegant eyebrow and for once I could see the resemblance between Sofia and her mother. "I should think I would know where my husband said his family was from. He told me there was a long history of wolves in the Freezenburg, and Sofia's father was one of them. He seemed to fear talk of his family, and discouraged me from ever contacting them to try for a reconciliation, but I had learned enough before Birk's death that I felt I could turn to them if Sofia truly needed help. It would be better than losing her to madness."

"I'm not so certain of that. There was once many wolves in Freezenburg, but for the last generation there has been only one left alive. Melker, the Royal Sorcerer of Freezenburg. I would not ask him for help, for he would be most likely to help you right into a grave." Or worse. I repressed a shudder at the thought of a young Sofia in the hands of Melker. The name brought nothing but revulsion to any decent Guardian. The woods of Freezenburg were a horror of darkness and viciousness, and a long line of Guardians had been corrupted into pawns and then nearly made extinct by a member of their own family.

Miranda grew concerned. "Truly? But Birk said that he was a younger son with no prospects, no lands to Guard, so he left in search of new opportunities. He fell in love with the sea, and with Galdiz, and made his home in my fishing village when I was just a child." She blushed softly. "I knew him for years before he got up the nerve to court me. He thought he was too old for me."

Sofia gave me a smug little look, as though this meant anything other than there was a history of dirty old men interested in the women in Sofia's ancestral line.

"Still, I can ask my father, but I am quite sure there is only one line of wolf Guardians in Freezenburg, and that is the Royal Family."

Miranda looked shocked at this, as did Sofia, who responded. "What?" she chirped, her voice as high as when she was a child. "Royal Family? Hildegard and Astrid are Guardians?"

I put down my cold cup of tea and massaged my temples. This was giving me a headache. "Those two – no. But in the past, their great uncles...it's a long story. For centuries, there was a tradition that whatever sons the Royal Family produced, one would become the Crown Prince, and another would train to become Royal Sorcerer. What was truly happening was there was almost always one son who carried the ability to Change in his blood, but who could not Change themselves, and one son who was a Guardian. The Guardian became Sorcerer, and the carrier the Prince, and thus the King. It was a system that worked well. Guardians have always avoided holding the Kingship itself, as it was thought to cause too many risks if the people discovered their ability to Change."

Sofia cleared her throat at this, giving me a look of amused chastisement. My own previous ambitions notwithstanding. I went on, "Yes, well, that is probably true. But, really, that system did work for centuries, until Melker was made Royal Sorcerer some two hundred years ago."

"Two hundred years! But you spoke of Melker as though he was still alive. Is it a descendent?"

"No, he is the same man. Melker the Menacing has been the Royal Sorcerer of Freezenburg for a very, very long time. And there has never been another wolf to survive into adulthood in the Freezenburg Royal line to take his place."

Sofia and Miranda both gasped. I could see that Miranda grasped the implications quickly, but Sofia just saw the tragedy. "Oh, how sad. Such a terrible blow to the family."

I hated to disabuse her of her innocence on matters such as this, but it was important. "There have been sons born to the kings of Freezenburg who most likely could change, but each one became an apprentice to Melker, and then died in tragic 'accidents'."

Miranda blurted out, "Oh Gods, that's what he meant!"

Sofia and I both looked at her in concern, and the Queen swallowed heavily before continuing. "Sofia, your father only spoke of his family rarely. He said that there were more than enough sons, and that he wished his brothers all the best, but he feared for his own safety since he couldn't measure up to the exactly standards of the 'family business'. I thought he meant that he wasn't cut out for being a gameskeeper or forest Guardian, since he loved the sea so much. But, but..."

"How old was your first husband, my queen?" I asked.

She bit her lip. "I'm not really sure. He seemed to be one of those men who never really changed, he just weathered a bit from time spent on the water, but...I know my grandmother was very very old when she passed. I never really knew how old."

Sofia spoke up then, her voice uncharacteristically timid, "I remember from my history lessons on Enchancia that we had to study all the royal ancestral lines. Father's grandmother was a princess of Freezenburg. She had two sisters and three brothers. There was a note in the pages of the peerage book that the Freezenburg house normally did not produce so many offspring and it was considered a sign of the strength of the monarchy to have had so many children, and an honor to Enchancia to have such a princess made Queen."

"That would have been at least a hundred years ago." I flicked my wand, and a book appeared. I'm glad that I had managed to sort through all the books in my library in trying to distract myself from Sofia's Heat, so it was an easy job to call the right one to me. Guardians were scattered few and far between, and so records of all the families were treasured, kept safe and kept as accurately as possible. I paged through the listings for Freezenburg for the last few decades, "There were only girls after Henrik."

Sofia whispered under her breadth, "Hildegarde said she had an aunt. And her sister of course, Astrid."

I barreled on, reading as fast as I could aloud. "Born before Henrik, his brother Hans Joseph had no marriage, nofamily, no dates – not even a date of death. And for Henrik's parents generation, Hans Henrik had no brothers. Henrik's grandfather Charles Joseph had had two brothers and three sisters recorded, one older brother – another Henrik who had disappeared from the records with no children listed, and a younger brother, Hans Birgin."

"Birgin!" Miranda shouted. "Birk...he said that his mother used to call him that. I thought it was an endearment!"

Sofia, quick as always. "So, my father was a prince." She chuckled. "How ironic. He tried to escape that life, and I ended up back in the thick of it."

"I don't think he was trying to escape being a royal, my love." I winced at the endearment that escaped, my eyes flickering to Miranda who seemed to stunned by events to notice what I had said, so I went on. "I know he was trying to escape Melker, his great-great-great...oh I don't know, his uncle several times removed. Melker sliced through that family like butter. He's been threatened by other Guardian households, but no one has wanted to offend the nation of Freezenburg by declaring open challenge. This is why it is a bad idea for Guardians to be so closely tied by blood to the royal family."

"Good thing most people think I'm a peasant princess and not in the line of succession." Sofia chirped.

"Sofia! What a thing to say!"

"Mom, I'm going to keep reminding Cedric as often as possible that there is no reason except for his own stubbornness and lack of self-confidence preventing us from being together. He is my mate, if he ever accepts that."

My mouth was still open, my brain trying to generate a response, when Baileywick's clear knock sounded at the door. "Your majesty? There is an unscheduled visit by a large diplomatic party from Freezenburg. The King is out touring the recent storm damage in Summerset. Will you meet with them, milady?"

We all froze. This was no mere coincidence. Miranda turned white with fear, and Sofia red with anger. She sprang to her feet and began to pace, her arms gesticulating wildly. "Of all the times – Hildegard asked me if I was a Guardian. I suppose they want me to marry some stray cousin or something. I am not a brood mare! I will marry the man I love or I will find my own stretch of forest somewhere in the world to protect and stay an old maid for the next century!" She came to a stop directly in front of me and stared straight at me, as though daring me to contradict her.

I was not amused – well, perhaps I was a little amused. She was right. If she did engage in such madness, I would track her down and beg her to come back to me. I could feel it, deep in my bones. In truth, I felt a little drunk, like champagne bubbles were percolating through my mind, and there was some kind of epiphany that would occur once they all popped. But all I could really think of at the moment was how much I wanted to grab her hips, pull her into my lap and kiss her until she was growling with pleasure and need for me, and all of her sadness and anger forgotten.

Baileywick coughed slightly, and Miranda came back to her senses, standing. "Yes, of course Baileywick. We do need to meet this delegation straight away. I'll have to change into more formal dress, of course. This sounds serious. Have them shown into the Throne Room and I shall be there in a moment." She turned to face us. "I assume the two of you would be willing to attend as well once you are properly dressed and...equipped?"

We both nodded.

If there was any time for the Family Wand, it was now.

The Queen left with the Steward, and I gave in to my instincts, grabbing Sofia by handfuls of lavender muslin and pulling her toward me. She managed a graceful sidesaddle mount of my bony knees and fell eagerly into my embrace, and I kissed her, desperate and messy and terrified.

I had lived in so much denial, so much false honor and suffering. But there was no way that I would give up Sofia to another man. And more importantly, I realized that there was no way that she would willingly go with any other man. She was mine, and I would fight for her, tooth and claw.


End file.
